Sun 30th November 2014 – Eastwater Thirteen Pots

Group: Sam, Jemma, Paul, Charlie, Jo, Will and me.
Duration: Four hours max.

This trip was a great opportunity to cave with some of the EUSS alumni (and current students) who I haven’t seen as much of since graduating. Charlie, Paul and Jo drove all the way up from Devon / Cornwall on the Saturday and we had a nice, relaxed evening. Sam and Jemma got the bus down on the Sunday morning, via Cave Climb to pick up some hire kit. This was the last trip for my old oversuit, which sadly began to disintegrate partway round, but I have a shiny new AV suit now – much nicer.

Summer Holiday 2014 – France

Ten days in the Lozère in the South of France with Jenks and Will. Caving, Via Ferrata, Climbing, Canyoning, Kayaking and eating. We stayed at a very cute and rustic little cottage on the top of a hill, in a village called Balazuegnes.

It’s a converted farm building, and it’s perfect for a caving holiday (i.e. a long way away from its neighbours, not too fancy or pretentious inside & with plenty of outside space). Gorgeous views too.

27th June 2014 – Grotte Prades, Prades, FRANCE

Coming as soon as humanly possible.

27th June 2014 – Castelbouc No. 4, Castlebouc, FRANCE

Castelbouc Number Four is my nemesis cave in France. Twice I’ve attempted a successful trip in here, and twice have failed. The first time was back in 2012 with EUSS. A group made up of me, Will and Ange, possibly plus another person, attempted this trip but couldn’t find the onwards route. So I returned with Jenks in 2014, as he was previously in a group that actually found the way on. Apparently there’s a bloody big chamber somewhere in this cave, which I wanted to see.

23rd June 2014 – La Duganelle, St. Chely Du Tarn, FRANCE

This cave (Grotte De La Duganelle to give it its full name) is in St. Chely Du Tarn, which is gorgeous and well worth a visit even if you’re not caving. It’s got the most beautiful bridge over the Tarn, connecting the village to the main road.

I originally went here in 2012 but we lost the bit of paper with the cave name on and no one could remember it – I googled it many times, to no avail. Luckily, our Canyonning guide from later this week somehow understood what I was miming to him and wrote down the name! Grotte de la Duganelle – no longer shall you be known as the Unnamed Cave!

The cave itself is up the hill behind the village – you can’t drive up though, so park in the carpark by the village square and walk up the hill.

Sunday 17th November 2013 – Afton Red Rift

Group: Me, Will, Jess W, Josh L, fresher (Nick I think?), and Jenks.
Duration: Two hours?

Apologies to the fresher whose name I have forgotten. It was my first,and so far only, time of meeting you. Teach me to wait two months before writing up a trip.

This was my second trip to Afton in as many years, the first of which was written up for the EUSS Journal and can be found in this log here. For anyone newish to the sport, who likes to think that their caving skills are improving, I recommend an annual trip to Afton. It’s guaranteed to bring you back down to ground with a bump (not literally, that would be quite a long way to fall in Afton). I think it would be a good measure of improvement though. For me, it’s not an entirely accurate test because Afton utilises skills that I tend to avoid using on other caving trips (rifting, wedging, climbing, squeezing, walking in a straight line, etc). Seriously though, Afton is the kind of cave I don’t experience that regularly, so it’s more of a test of how much those specific skills have deteriorated rather than improved. As it turns out, not too badly!

Saturday 16th November 2013 – Pridhamsleigh Cavern

For more posts on Prid, select Pridhamsleigh Cavern on the left or click here.

Group: Jenks, Will, Big Mike, Charlie, me!
Duration: I don’t know, two hours maximum?

This weekend was a Jenks weekend because he was back in Exeter for the first time since the end of last uni year. So naturally, we went to Firehouse for pizza on the Friday night and to Prid for mud on the Saturday.

We spent approximately 10 mins getting to the lake, an hour in the Mystery Pools, 10 minutes returning from the lake and half an hour following Will who swore he knew the way to the Deep Well. It turns out he doesn’t. The Mystery Pools were loads of fun though!

2nd November 2013 – Eastwater Cavern + 13 Pots

Group: Me, Lydia, Charlie and Will
Duration: Three hours?

I’ve been down Eastwater a few times before, but this was my first time down to the lower series. Lydia had done the 13 pots trip once before, so armed with her hazy knowledge and Mendip Underground’s directions, we set off. We arranged to use another groups rigging for Dolphin Chimney, in exchange for packing it away and bringing it out with us.

In down the boulder choke, through the Woggle Press to the Crossroads and then it was time to head down Dolphin Chimney which I would guess is somewhere around 40ft long. We rigged a handline as the book suggests – not necessary on the way down but definitely useful on the way back up! I was nervous about this bit of the trip but it’s really a very simple climb, though the bottom does bell out a bit. From there, it was a brief crawl to the top of Dolphin Pot. As there is very little room for people at the head of the pitch, we spent some time re-arranging our group here. In the end, I belayed Will down first and then re-arranged the rigging so that Will could belay everyone else down from the bottom. The climb was straightforward, even if the ladder did end a few feet short of the floor!

Saturday 10th August 2013 – Reservoir Hole to The Frozen Deep!

Group: Aubrey Newport, Wayne, Will and me.
Duration: About three hours.

After trying repeatedly to execute a successful trip down Dan Yr Ogof, and getting rained off every single time, it was a very pleasant surprise to receive an email from Aubrey, offering me two places on a short-notice trip down the Frozen Deep (another of my wishlist caves) on Saturday. That weekend also conveniently being the weekend of Paul, Ellen and Mike’s (informally known as Paumillen) joint birthday weekend at *shudder* the Belfry.

I resolved to drink only a small amount on Friday night in order to arrive bright-eyed at the Wessex at 10am Saturday morning, and so of course what happened was that I drank a horrific amount of cider and went to bed at 3am. It was an…odd sort of night, possibly topped by Saturday night but really I can’t remember or even distinguish between my memories of the two nights any more.

Anyhow, 10am at the Wessex rolled around and Will and I miraculously weren’t late! We met up with Aubrey and Wayne, and headed down the hill via Martin Grass’ house to collect the key. We kitted up in the Gorge, attracting the usual curious looks from the grockles, and headed up to the entrance. The gate is very unusual, sort of like a re-purposed bear trap. The beginning of the cave is a small-ish downhill passage, populated by a large family of even larger spiders. At the T-Junction, the right hand turn is taken, doubling back in the direction of the road.

Saturday 4th May 2013 – Baker’s Pit Trip Report

A trip to see ‘all of Bakers’
Group: Will, Charlie, Mike and I.
Duration: About 2 and a half hours I think.

Our plan was to go around all of Baker’s Pit, including Crystal Corridor and the end of the streamway which I hadn’t seen before. We also planned to do the Plymouth Climb and maybe have a look at the extentions if everyone made it up the climb. Charlie was also determined to show that he was KEEN. You may remember Charlie as one half of the Cavers Who Don’t Like Caving from this entry. He took exception to my suggestion that he wasn’t always keen or enthusiastic and has been desperately trying to prove me wrong!