Saturday 16 May 2015

Upper Flood Swallet

After finishing working in Wales at Midnight the day before Jess and I were looking forward to being up at 7am to get down to the Mendips for our outing in Upper Flood......not.
Our mood wasn't helped by a bouncy Chloe turning up bright and breezy looking forward to her outing. We stopped off en route for coffee and pastries to help wake us up and made good time getting to the MCG hut where we were to meet our leader for the day, Jude.
We quickly changed and made our way to the unassuming entrance. The trip in was far more leisurely than my first 3 1/2 hour sprint through and at this pace I began to relax and enjoy the sporty nature of the entrance series. At the old squeeze in the boulder choke Chloe and Jess had a slide through...I still remembered the bruising on my ribs from the last time I pushed through, so decided to take the bypass this time. On our way through to Neverland we stripped off our over suits and took a trip to see the stunning curtain at the ladder climb. On our way up to Neverland we all emitted the customary oohs and aahs as the beautiful white calcite came in to view. Even though I had been before I couldn't help but join in the vocal appreciation. Jude was kind enough to allow me time to take a few quick shots before we begun to chill down and headed back to put our suits back on. We soon warmed up as we headed back through Royal Icing Junction, Plank Chamber and Duck Under Boss. I took advantage of this to take my photographic objective of the trip, a chamber shot of The Departure Lounge. With this objective met we made our way back through the Choke and were soon making our way back up the tube to a reasonably warm and sunny afternoon. Back at the MCG we warmed ourselves with a quick shower, thanked Jude for a great trip and headed back toward Priddy for our, now customary, Butcombe pie at the Queen Vic.

Neverland

The Departure Lounge

Present: Chloe Burney, Jess Burkey, Mark Burkey and many thanks to our leader Jude.



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