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.
Coming as soon as humanly possible.
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.
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.
Group: Jenks, Tom Elliot, Will, Mike W, Olivia, Patrick and me.
Sandford Levy by the light of candles. Birthday candles to be specific, which surprisingly don’t give out that much light.
A second saturday trip, led by Wayne.
Group: Wayne, Fran, Jenks, Imran, Will and me.
Duration: Three hours
This was my second trip down Longwood but the first was nearly two years ago when I was very new to caving, so my memory of the cave was a little out. Jenks and Fran had come up to the Wessex for the weekend so we had a good group. Wayne led us, and Imran joined us as he’d come up for the Second Saturday.
The first thing that was different was that the entrance chimney was a lot shorter than I remembered. It seemed very long last time but this time I was really surprised to reach the bottom, and spent a bit of time trying to work out where the next drop was before realising that was it. The narrow sideways rift out of the chimney was also much more straightforward than I remembered. There is actually a rock jammed in the crack and it’s larger if you go over the top. Tried head first, and had to retreat and go feet first because of the drop on the other side.
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!
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!
Group: Will, Paul, Jo, Lydia, me.
A photo trip down Prid, just to the lake and back. The purpose of this trip was really to get some naked photos of Paul, our newly elected EUSS President. This is a club tradition and to prove this, there is a photo from last year’s shoot at the bottom of the photos.
This trip swiftly turned into a full on photoshoot with other members of the group shedding their clothes for a photo.They have given me permission to post these online.This is by no mean all of the photos taken.
All photos taken by Will.
Joe and I above the Bottomless Pit
Jo
Jo
Jo, Paul and I
Nakedness starts behind the cut 🙂 No actual naughty bits on display but not particularly SFW either.
Saturday 16th March – Eastwater
Group: Paul, Ellen, Jo, Will, Floppy Plym, me.
A nice, if not 100% enjoyable, trip down Eastwater which got more fun as it went on. I enjoyed the alternate route in (avoiding the Woggle Press) although we weren’t actually sure it was the right way, right up until the squeeze. Then we turned back and eventually located the Woggle Press. We went in that way, and headed down the canyon to Dolphin Pot. There was a group of eight coming up and we waited 15 minuted but by that point not even one person had made it up the chimney so we gave up. We bumbled around beyond the cross roads for a bit and then headed out by the same route we had used to enter.
Flos Caves 