Dudley Caving Club: Zipping along for Milwr Time

Paul Fairman of the BEC had arranged a weekends play in North Wales and had kindly invited Jess and I along.

So although not officially a Dudley trip we did have a presence!

Our first days play turned in to a fun day of the blind leading the blind as our 'leader' was still nowhere to be seen at midday and so a team of ten of us headed in undeterred and adventured around the various zip lines and climbs.
We managed a full six hours play before heading back to our base at Tremadog for a good meal and a few beers.

After a day of fun and games, Paul mentioned we may be able to join him on a trip in to the Milwr Tunnel on the Sunday.
We both jumped at the chance as we'd never been before and had heard all about the trip from some of our older club members.
We met up about on time and although we were a large group of eight plus four leaders, we moved reasonably swiftly through Rhyd Alyn and down the 24 ladders to emerge at the train.
After a little tinkering the guys managed to get the engine going and we all jumped aboard. Unfortunately there were still problems and we were soon dismounted and had to take shanks pony to the Lime Stone caverns.

Here we took a couple of photos before Doug and Steven headed back to take another look at the train whilst Mike and Steve continued the tour to take in the huge shaft which was used for entering the system before being condemned and around the upper series from the limestone caverns before we plodded back upstream to see how the guys were getting on.
The consensus was that more work was needed and so we headed back out and up the ladders pausing for a photo on the way out.

A mention of thanks should go to UCET members Doug, Mike, Steven & Paul who were very knowledgeable, able, and patient leaders.....even when I kept calling Paul by the wrong name the entire trip!