Dudley Caving Club: Swinging in Pembrokeshire, A day at the seaside but still no ice-cream!!!

Sunday, 31 August 2014

Swinging in Pembrokeshire, A day at the seaside but still no ice-cream!!!

Saturday saw Jess and I having a little play in OFD Top to try out my new toys and provide a stop over a little closer for our planned outing on the west coastline on Sunday.
Brendan and Keith also decided this would be a good plan and joined us Saturday night at the SWCC.
As many know Jess and I do like a lie in when we do our camping trips, but this time I was just too excited to stay in bed later than 7.30am. I have been lucky to tick off many of my bucket list trips of late and Sunday's trip has been at the top for some time.
I have been pestering Keith and Brendan for a trip to Ogof Gofan for over a year and my constant nagging finally paid off. We made an early start from the SWCC at 8am and didn't reach our breakfast stop at St Clears till gone 9am. The only option open to us for our traditional start to a caving trip was a Little Chef which had just had a coach party descend on them.
With all our delays it was near midday before we found ourselves changing on the MOD live fire range. The tranquil coastline setting was almost unspoilt aside from the numerous warning signs and the helicopter gunship circling above us. Undaunted we made our way to the cliff face above the entrance to Ogof Gofan.
We took no chances with the rigging, using two natural anchors as well as the two rusted stakes and several rope protectors over the sharp rock. The abseil is only short but feels quite exposed as the waves crash in to the cliff face below.
I waited at the entrance to take a couple of shots whilst Jess went off to begin exploring. Once Keith and Brendan had joined me we all begun thrutching through the short crawls to join Jess at the 2nd Window. From here again we crawled and squeezed up through the chambers until we popped through in to the impressive 5th Chamber. This has a very continental feel to the formations and I took a good while taking pictures here.
From the 5th Chamber we climbed up and squeezed through to the 6th Chamber. Keith wormed his way down an inviting body sized hole in to a boulder choke only to find the ceiling above him looking rather delicate, so carefully he made his way back to us.
Again we explored, filmed and photographed the final chamber of this short but beautiful cave.
Finally it was time to make our way back. We were soon back at the entrance pitch and each made our way carefully back to the surface. Walking back to the car park we all agreed it had been an excellent days caving and to top it off there was even an ice-cream van waiting for us.......at least until we reached the gate, at which point he decided to drive off........Typical!