Black and White caving - Siambre Ddu and Gwaliau Gwynion

With a couple of free days we set off on Thursday morning down to South Wales with the opportunity to visit a handful of the smaller caves that tend to get overlooked on on club visits. We headed up to Whitewalls to witness the beer for the Chelsea's weekend BBQ being tested, before changing and then heading up to our first cave of the day.

Part 1 - Ogof Gwaliau Gwynion - Whitewalls Cave

Our first cave of the day is located in the cliff face on the escarpment almost directly behind the Whitewalls cottage. We headed in through the slightly wet and muddy crawls taking care to get as little on our oversuits as we could. The passage alternated between muddy sections and quite dry sandy sections before a choked area was reached where we heeded upwards through boulders and then followed a low crawl over fallen blocks. We then emerged into a couple of small decorated chambers - the Tinkle Chambers before the passage reduced to a low crawl over dried gours. We followed a short distance until the draughting passage was too low to follow further.

Brendan in Ogof Gwaliau Gwynion - Photo Mark Burkey

Mark in Ogof Gwaliau Gwynion - Photo Brendan Marris

Part 2 - Siambre Ddu - The Black Cavern

After lunch when we the headed over to Pwll Du to have a look at a single chamber cave, that is quite unique in its formation. Essentially the cave is an underground shakehole with a gritstone roof spanning it. To add to its unique nature most of the fallen rocks are covered in a black peaty deposit which give the cave its name - The Black Cavern. Careful observation in the cave also reveals another unique feature with fossil imprints of tree trunks being visible in the roof and on some of the fallen blocks. A good few hours was spent taking photos.

Mark in Siambre Ddu - Photo Brendan Marris

Mark in Siambre Ddu - Photo Brendan Marris

Brendan in Siambre Ddu - Photo Mark Burkey

Fossilised tree trunk - Photo Brendan Marris

Present: Mark Burkey and Brendan Marris