For this to work, we would leave messages in drains around Melbourne telling people how to get to our local drain, then they were instructed to leave a meeting date at least 2 weeks in advance at our local drain, then hopefully we would see their message in time.

Everyone we met this way stayed exploring for the next 25+ years.
I guess you had to be dedicated to muck about that much.

This probably sounds horrid to most of you, however it was a lot of fun.

I've heard legends of Cave Clan drain messages left to tell new explorers how to contact the community, very cool to hear that those legends had some truth to them! Is it true that you guys eventually transitioned to notes or cassette tapes with recorded messages stashed in ziplock bags in the farthest reaches of some drains?

Posted by Aran I've heard legends of Cave Clan drain messages left to tell new explorers how to contact the community, very cool to hear that those legends had some truth to them? Is it true that you guys eventually transitioned to notes or cassette tapes with recorded messages stashed in ziplock bags in the farthest reaches of some drains?

Yes, everything you said is correct. For a couple of years we used both the messages on the walls & the message bags at the same time.

Once we got a PO box in 1990, they became obsolete, although people loved finding the message bags.