Dudley Caving Club: Brendan feels a bit Blue in Long Churn

After a rather manic couple of weeks at work our boss asked if we fancied a couple of extra days off to make a long weekend. Jess and I contacted Brendan and so a plan was hatched to finish off our route finding in Ease Gill of the main routes. After a bit of faff Friday morning we eventually left late and arrived at Inglesport gone 11am.

As we hadn’t managed a lot of sleep in the last week, and we had some new toys to play with, it was decided we would just start the weekend off gently with a trip into Long Churn to have a play with the new flash guns and bulbs.

This culminated in a shot being taken from the top of Dr. Bannisters hand basin.

Looking down from the top we needed a little more reflection coming off the walls and Brendan began using his boot as a bucket to throw the water. After one successful go he slipped and nearly fell so I told him I would continue. Filling a welly I went to toss the boot full over the wall , slipped and tossed the whole lot over Brendan’s head. His response was to curse me loudly, turn, slip and fall in to the pool behind him!

Once we had all stopped laughing, Jess climbed up onto the water chute so that I could get the shot, while Brendan waded into the pool with flash bulbs. One shot led to another, as these things do, and a few bulbs went off prematurely, so by the time I was fairly happy with the camera angle and lighting, Brendan had been in and out of the pool so many times his teeth were chattering.

With a bigger trip on the cards for the next day, we were quite happy to leave the water behind and set off to the Bradford hut to eat and relax.