Potholing - Where Big Men Get Into Small Holes

The Dudley visit Eldon Hole in Derbyshire. With apologies to the Fast Show circa 1993 from which we stole the script, to the Buttered Badger Potholing Club, and to women cavers who everyone knows are equal to or if not better than their male counterparts.

This is a work of fiction and the Buttered Badgers mentioned bear no relationship to the actual Buttered Badgers. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s fevered imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

The video was taken on 13th November 2016.

Like a streak of lightning through Middleton Dale

With only occasional visits to Derbyshire, we had got into a habit of visiting just a select few classic sites, and so we picked out Streaks Pot from the guidebook - something a little different to have a try out. After breakfast in Morrisons we sent Jess off on her bike and then headed to Stoney Middleton following instructions for Mark's Sat Nav, that must have been in 'Taxi Driver' mode as it took us on a tour of the Peak District. We finally arrived in Stoney Middleton and then took the GPS and had a walk to locate both entrances. This duly completed we kitted up and headed to the Top Entrance. A short crawl led to a fine 11 metre pitch that we laddered , and then down we went led by Mike down through rifts and shafts to meet a squeeze at the bottom, that features as the cover photograph for the Derbyshire guidebook. I took two attempts to get through and then we crawled to meet the trickle of water that made stream at this point. Mark then led the way to the upstream passages calling us all through as he had scouted some fine locations for photos. We explored up to Lu-blu sump and then took a handful of photos on our way back to the junction at the bottom of the entrance series.

Lucy upstream in Streaks Pot

Lucy upstream in Streaks Pot

Mike upstream in Streaks Pot

From here there could only be one way on it was an awkward squeeze up between blocks, followed by more awkward squeezes as we worked our way by trial and error through Nervous Breakdown to meet the stream proper on the other side. This was followed until we paused at a inlet where the water increased and progress was decidedly aqueous. With more rain forecast we wanted to be sure we were on route before heading any further downstream. We identified our location as Donkey Dong Inlet (the Donkey Dongs hanging from the roof). We then headed with a little trepidation towards the Mousehole, which we thought from the name was going to be the deal breaker of the trip, but we must have passed it without realising. Spirits raised now as we knew we would not have to retrace our steps, and we headed to Route 66. Here we made a navigational error and headed through a tight awkward squeeze into a boulder choke with no way on. We backtracked to a junction and then found the right route. Following the draught up a tube to the lower entrance we encountered the tightest squeeze of the day as we broke through into the bottom of the short entrance shaft. In summary - a fine through trip with plenty of squeezes, crawls, mud, water and tight bits - whats not to like?

Present: Mark Burkey, Lucy Collins, Mike Bonner and Brendan Marris

Video Highlights of the Caving Year

Here's the video I cobbled together and showed at the meeting on 18th December.  It's now been uploaded to YouTube so if you missed it or fancy taking another look, here's your chance.

I always enjoy putting these compilations together and looking back over caving the year brings back loads of great memories.

Thanks to all of the people who have assisted in this production. There are 15 of you and some of you are real stars. I must say a special thanks to Brendan, Jess and Mark for their help and encouragement, and an extra special thanks to Loz for risking life and limb to add that special bit of drama to the production.

Peaking at Titan & out in time for Turkey!

After hearing that the TSG were having their Christmas get together this weekend and were rigging Titan, Jess thought she'd be cheeky and ask if there was any chance of tagging along. Not only were we warmly welcomed to have a limited group join them, but we were even offered Christmas dinner as well!
There were only a couple of bunks available at the TSG, but as Jess and I were stopping in our van that meant there would be space for 2 further people to join the team. Chloe and Loz were the first to show interest so their places were secured.
We all arrived at the Chapel for 8.30am and were soon changed and ready. There were a few large groups on the board going to Water Icicle, one doing Peak and out through Titan, and another doing The White River series. We introduced ourselves and explained that we'd contacted about joining the Titan through trip to come out of Peak Cavern. Excellent was the reply and a key and bag of rope were thrust at us.
"Aren't we joining anyone?" I enquired, but it turned out that they wanted us to rig the entrance shaft and we would be the only group doing the through trip from that end.
As we had never been to Titan before we asked around for directions and were given some vague hand gestures.
Loz drove us up the lane and after questioning a couple of times if I was sure that we were going the right way, gently coaxed her car up the rough boulder strewn track.
It turned out that the vague hand gestures were sufficient to find the entrance after all and I was soon rigging the shaft to enter.
The 45m entrance shaft dropped to piece of passage with pools of water and rounded a corner to the very impressive head of the 141.5M head of Titan itself. I have to say even though I abseil every day for a living this was still something of a knee trembler as you get on the rope. I looked around with my Scurrion on full power and was met by a void of darkness below. As I descended toward the Event Horizon my light pierced the darkness and I begun to appreciate the scale of Titan itself. I whooped like a kid at Christmas as I reached the Event Horizon and the hanging re-belay. I had heard tales of Wal getting hung up here and was careful to ensure I didn't make the same mistake. I was soon at the base of the pitch on the boulder pile and waiting for the others to reach me. As each descended they were backlit by the next persons light as they reached the Event Horizon and the view was amazing. After just over an hour everyone was at the base of the pitch. We made our way through the boulder choke and to JH without any problem. As we exited I couldn't remember which way we turned. I knew we'd be going down The Bung though so figured down stream. I turned left and was met by the water flowing upstream so begun to head the other way. Jess was heading toward me and said that the stream was flowing upstream as well. Odd I thought, Oh well we'd try my way first then and see if the stream way split. We eventually hit a sump and had to retrace back only to find Jess's water had mysteriously changed direction and was in fact flowing downstream. There were no other navigational blips fortunately and we progressed through the various obstacles, traverses, ladders, canals and the infamous Colostomy crawl to the show cave in good time, exiting before the Christmas Concert which was due to start around 4pm.
The TSG did us proud with a fantastic 3 course Christmas dinner and wine flowing aplenty!

Loz and Chloe at the Titan entrance shaft

Loz at the Event Horizon

Jess reaches the bottom of the 141.5M pitch

Ummmmmm where are we?!?!

The girls exit Colostomy Crawl

Present: Jess Burkey, Chloe Burney, Loz Appleby & Mark Burkey

Telford Trio in Splinter Group Complete Exchange Trip In the Peaks - Oxlow Caverns to Maskhill Mine

I had offered to rig Oxlow Cavern for Andy G who was leading a novice SRT trip into the cave and was soon joined by two sherpas with large rope bags in the guise of Rob and Tony. We headed into the main cavern and rigged the final pitch into Pool Chamber and then waited for two larger groups to arrive and then DCC had 13 members underground in the passage linking Oxlow and Maskhill.

I had spent some time on the descent showing Rob and Tony some rigging techniques and when we were all together it was decided that the Telford Trio (Me, Rob & Tony) would head out of Maskhill making the exchange trip and everyone else would exit Oxlow Cavern. This would help both of them understand more of the techniques used in rigging so we didn’t waste any time heading off up the Maskhill chamber.

I let Tony and Rob de-rig every pitch and played the role of rope bag hauler. Once we filled the first bag I took it up and out of the shaft and then headed back down to help with the work as there is a lot of rope and rigging to take out from Maskhill.

We were the first DCC cavers out and moved to the top of Oxlow to see if everyone was okay. There were lights moving down the shaft so we waited until we had communication with the others before heading down to the vehicles with all of our rope bags. We got changed and waited for the first few cavers to join us before heading to the Wanted Inn for a drink. I didn’t join Rob and Tony in the pub as I was on my motorbike and wanted to get back to Brum before it got too dark.

Trip Report: Andy Kempster

Members Present: Andy Kempster, Rob Campbell and Tony Ferrun.

Off On The Crusades Before going Off on Holiday!

As Mr Grimes was arranging a novice SRT trip in to Oxlow I decided a through trip from Maskhill would be good practice for cavers going to Mallorca at the beginning of October. After having been to Hidden Earth I also fancied a poke around in ‘New Oxlow’.

After parking up, changing and paying our fees to the farmer we were about to head off up the hill when I realised I had neglected to bring a memory card for my camera, so after some faffing Helen came to my rescue with an SD card from her camera.

We trotted up the hill with a tackle sack each weighing us down and were soon jumping like lemmings down the entrance pitch. Chloe wanted some practice and took over the rigging between the 2nd and 3rd pitches and we all made swift progress down to the connection with Oxlow.

Here we met up with the other group and posed for a quick group shot before continuing up the pull through in to Pilgrims Way. Here we dumped our SRT kits and after a reasonable amount of crawling we passed the Giant’s connection and were rewarded with larger passage way. We continued on exploring all leads until we came upon a pitch up and a pitch down. Unfortunately none of us had any SRT kit as we hadn’t expected to need it so we did the 20 min’s of crawling again in both directions to retrieve it. Chloe and Jess went up toward the new Crusader extensions and I began setting up a camera shot only to find out I was out of battery….Doh!

Instead I headed down the pitch and into the crawls and ducks that continued through the New Oxlow Extensions. Upon returning to the foot of the pitch we all re-joined and headed back to the elusive connection to Giants. We had taken a look at the horrid looking tight, flat out, wet way in to the chamber of horrors a few times in the past. Helen began taking the lead before deciding it wasn’t looking very pleasant. I encouraged Chloe to give it another go and with a little digging and with me wedged in the tight corner she managed to push through the tight squeeze. Turning around she actually found it easier to push back through. Feeling a little hypothermic we regrouped and headed out via Oxlow.

A great trip and a few places now to revisit!

Present: Helen Nightingale, Chloe Burney, Jess Burkey and Mark Burkey

Return to Nettle pot

Due to the fact that we failed to find Derbyshire Hall on our last trip to Nettle, we decided we would need to return fairly soon while the route was still fresh in our memory.
I had travelled up to the Peaks wearing most of my kit, so on arrival all I had to do was jump out grab the rope and my SRT kit and head off to to start rigging the entrance shaft so as to help speed up getting people down the entrance shaft, so that was that and i was soon at the bottom of the shaft closely followed by the rest of the team, we soon made our way crawling through the sticky mud to the second pitch down, where Mark took over the rigging, then came the rope climbs up and by now it was getting difficult to tell what was SRT kit and what was clay, another short crawl over the far flats followed, and then finally the last pitch down was found - success - Mark went first followed by Major Andy then me, on my arrival at the bottom of the pitch I was called to the front to try Freeze Squeeze as Mark couldn't fit, I tried helmet off and head first, I tried on my back and feet first but it was a no go, I then asked Steve to have a go but he had the same result, I tried again feet first, breath out wiggle a bit breath, I was moving slowly but surely, but then disaster I had a large piece of the roof right in the gonads and my chest was stuck, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't go any further into the crawl, bugger, getting my self out of the crawl wasn't very easy either, so that was that-failed, oh well, we all slowly but steadily made our way back across the mud to the pitches out, and by now we were all a nice shade of brown from head to toe, finally, once we where all on the surface more than a few of us agreed,we wont coming back to nettle again, bl**dy shi*t hole, well not while its still fresh in our memories anyway.

Present: Andy G, Andy K, Mark B, Jess B and Steve W

                                          Nice and clean at the bottom of the entrance shaft

                                                        climbing up from freeze squeeze

Andy climbing up the entrance shaft

Feeling Peaky After A Trip To Far Sump

At my time of life I should be taking it easy, winding down from silly pursuits like caving and spending more time in my garden with my beloved trains - not leading a serious trip in the Peak/Speedwell system, but Mark wanted to see the Far Sump Extensions in Peak and Brendan wanted to say that he had been to the bottom of Titan and back out.
As far as my failing memory serves me only two people from the club had ever been to the bottom of Titan and as Wal isn’t caving at the moment, it seems, it was left to me to lead the trip, and I really would have liked to be with one of the other groups having a nice stroll around the tourist places!
I thought that if I’d got to do it then I would try to capture some video, but as I knew that it was going to be a muddy and wet trip I elected to use the GoPro camera mounted with the Chesty (chest mount).
In spite of my trepidation things started quite well, until I planted myself face first in the first pool we came to. Both the camera and I ended up submerged much to the delight of Brendan and Mark who thought it was hysterically funny.
We then made our way along Upper Gallery and through Treasury Chamber to the gate at Faulty Tower. The long standing club members will recall the incident when John Smith came back to the gate and found it locked. He grabbed the bars with both hands and rattled them like a caged gorilla. Be sure to ask for the full story sometime - it is worth recounting.
A fixed ladder at Faulty Tower leads to the Trenches and then the infamous Colostomy Crawl. I don’t need to tell you what it’s like - the name says it all.

The Trenches

Another fixed ladder leads down Egnaro Aven from the end of the crawl to enter the Lower Bung streamway.

Lower Bung Streamway

This is followed upstream via a flat out Oxbow to the Bung waterfall. A fixed ladder goes up through the middle of the waterfall to enter the main steam in Speedwell.

The Bung

This is followed upstream via the Whirlpool to a boulder pile where an aven can be scaled to enter the bottom of JH mine.

Main Stream - Speedwell

The Whirlpool

 From here an excavated crawl connects to Stemple Highway with its pitches and traverses. I don’t think I mentioned the traverses to the other two as I know how much Brendan likes traverses.

A pitch in Stemple Highway

Traverse in Stemple Highway

After this my memory was getting a little hazy and I took a wrong turn and ended in a dig off Salmon’s Cavern. Turning around in an almost impossibly tight spaced caused much more mirth for my companions.
Back on the correct route I found the bottom of the Titan boulder choke. This is the largest choke I’ve ever been through - the boulders are stacked for over 100 feet and above them is the bottom of Titan, the largest natural shaft in Britain, 492 feet high.
After this dropped down to Far Sump and then explored AJ Passage before making our way out to emerge from the show cave 6 hours after entering it in the morning.

Heading back to JH

Now I’ve always said that I would know when it was time to pack up this caving lark. The measure would be when I became the slowest member of the team and therefore held the others up. On the way out that happened. Time to slip off and play with the trains I think.

The pictures are stills from the video below.

The Team: Brendan Marris, Mark Burkey and Keith Edwards.

Peak Cavern - Main Stream and Moss Chamber

Two groups entered Peak Cavern to cover the trade routes up the main streamway and to visit Moss Chamber.

Clive Westlake accompanied one group and took the following stunning images.

Moss Chamber - Photo by Clive Westlake

Lower Main Streamway - Photo by Clive Westlake

Streamway near Squaw Junction - Photo by Clive Westlake

Present: Jessica Burkey, Ian Millward, Chloe Burney, Loz Appleby, Clive Westlake, Becca Kirkpatrick, Mel Bell, Rich Gibbons, Andy Grimes

Mud Mud & More Mud In Nettle Pot

Having heard tales from Andy and Wal of the tight vertical squeezes Nettle Pot had to offer, when Wal suggested a trip one night at the club I, of course, signed myself and Jess up straight away!

Unfortunately on the day Wal wasn’t feeling well so then there were 3.

We made good time and arrived at around 10am to find 3 cars already parked. Andy was confident that people hardly ever go to Nettle and anyone here would be doing Oxlow or Maskhill. We were half changed when another car pulled up and a women jumped out exclaiming that as there were half naked people by the side of the road she must be in the right place! Turned out she wasn’t a swinger after all and was in fact waiting on yet another party to arrive for Oxlow.

As we finished changing a further 2 cars arrived and some lads jumped out asking if anyone was going to Nettle…. “Yes!”, Andy gruffed and soon packed them on their way sending them off to Giants :)

After trudging up the hill past the entrance to Oxlow we went through the gate and spent 15 minutes looking for the entrance before discovering we had walked straight past it.

Andy rigged and was soon sliding down the narrows in his loveable vocal caving style. I went next and was glad to find them more awkward than tight, especially with Jess's rather splendid idea of extending the stop on a sling from the D ring to hang above us rather than at waist height. 

Reaching the bottom of Bottle Pitch Andy declared he had a splitting headache and that he hadn’t wanted to let us know until he’d got us in the cave. After making sure he had a key and knew where the first aid kit was in the van for tablets he headed out and we headed off down The Flats …..and then there were 2. 

Reaching the levitation pitch at the end of the Flats we found this already rigged, but on inspection of the rope there was a cut in the sheath so we rigged our own and continued down. The traverse over Suicide Pot was also pre-rigged, but proved to be in good condition. Upon reaching the pull through we discovered there was no pull through cord and ropes were already in situ. As this was only a 5m pitch I tentatively went up to check the rigging and found it to be in decent condition for Jess to join me. The 2^nd pull through also turned out to be rigged so again I went up first to check with jess following. 

After a half an hour or exploring the very muddy and wet Far Flats, and not finding anything that could be described as a tight squeeze, we decided we had better head back to Andy. Reaching the head of the 30ft pitch it turned out that to aid her in her prussic up the rope Jess had decided it would be a good idea to tie off the tail of the rope to one of the pull through bolts. Unfortunately in doing this she had made the rope so taught there was no way of threading a stop. The only way down would be to down prussic the muddy rope. 

The exit through the Narrows proved awkward whilst hauling the heavy rope bag beneath me, then to top off Jess couldn’t undo a Krab and I had to do the Narrows again to de-rig!

Reaching the van Andy had a good laugh at the amount of mud we were caked in and upon examination of the guide book we found, although the rigging guide makes no mention of it, we in fact needed to find a 12m pitch down at the end of the Far Flats to find Freeze Squeeze and the way to Derbyshire Hall. Oh well a good excuse for a return visit! :)

Mark entering the 'Narrows'

Jess admiring formations in the 'Far Flats'

Jess sporting a rather fetching mud beard ;)

Present Andy Grimes, Jess Burkey & Mark Burkey

Maskhill/Oxlow Exchange for a Major Miner!

After receiving a request from Andy Kempster for an SRT trip for his first outing with Dudley, and having found out Alum Pot was his first SRT outing, we realised we’d need something a little tastier than a normal novice trip for him. Carl, Grant and Chloe had also expressed an interest so as there would be sufficient bodies available a Maskhill/Oxlow exchange was decided upon.

Jess and I picked up Chloe on the way and met up with Andy, Carl and Grant at 9am (Carl would like a special shout out to point out they were actually 15 minutes early!)

Carl and Grant were to rig Oxlow whilst Andy, Jess Chloe and I would go in to Maskhill. As we anticipated taking longer going in Maskhill it was decided that we would set off ahead of the lads to give us a head start.

Although the weather was far kinder than our recent trips to these mines I decided to head up the hill and get the entrance pitches rigged whilst the others finished changing so there wouldn’t be too much standing around in the cold. Everyone made short work of the pitches and within a couple of hours we were heading through to the West Chamber to meet up with the lads. Unfortunately the lads had given us a bit more of a head start than I’d anticipated and we had an hour wait for them to join us.

United we set the pull through to Pilgrim’s way so I could take another look at the route to the Chamber of Horrors. Grant elected to take a break whilst we went to explore. The crawls went on quite a bit longer than I’d remembered and it was 20 minutes before we reached the flat out crawls in a very cold stream way.  Carl decided to head back to keep Grant company (probably the most intelligent of us). I headed in first and was soon at the tight s-bend. This time with helmet off I managed to get my chest around the corner only to find the passage continue to tighten. Worried that I wouldn’t be able to reverse if I got too stuck, Chloe volunteered to lead the way (well maybe ‘volunteer’ is a bit strong ;) To avoid drowning she went through on her back, but finding her nose was touching the rock roof, she too was a little nervous of getting stuck with her legs contorted around the corner. With no one smaller to send in to see if it would be do-able, or dig-able we headed back to continue the trip.

We swiftly rigged the Waterfall Chamber. Andy and myself then descended Pool Chamber before, very cold and wet, we began the long climb out.

Andy, Jess and Chloe continued with the exchange while, to help with the de-rig, I exited out Maskhill with Grant and Carl.

Grant wasn’t feeling too good on the way out, so Carl and I were left to haul out the heavy rope bags between the two of us. Even so we still managed to exit before the other group and managed to call Mr Grimes (our call out) with only minutes to spare.  Half an hour later and the other team joined us. The Oxlow pitches had proven somewhat wetter than usual, and everyone was glad to get warm and dry.

Andy had no problems with this big exchange trip, other than the fact Jess had decided to tie on a bag to his rope before he exited the head of a pitch and nearly pulled him off! Even so he seemed very happy with the trip and even eager to join us on a future outing…..the crazy fool!

 

Andy on the abseil traverse above Waterfall Chamber

Present: Grant Wilkes, Carl Knot, Chloe Burney, Jess Burkey, Mark Burkey and Andy Kempster

Bagshawe Caverns - Christmas Trip

Bagshawe Caverns was a cave that had not been visited by any members of the club and had earlier in the year been requested for booking by 'the boys'. So when it came to planning a post Christmas trip, this cave seemed to fit the bill as being quite local and big enough to have a couple of groups exploring it. Jessica booked the cave, plus a guide to allow one group to visit the gated sections.
The arrangements were to be at the Shoulder of Mutton ready to go to the cave at 11am, or meet for breakfast at 9am, a very leisurely start, unless of course if you were travelling with Andy, in which case setting alarm clocks for 4am was required...
Most had breakfast and then headed to the Shoulder of Mutton, Andy headed straight to the cave. Just after 11am Jon Pemberton arrived and we all headed to the cave entrance. Andy, Fred and Becca were already changed and so we were all in the hut over the entrance signing in. We split into two groups once down the massive flight of steps, one group with Jon to go to the gated areas and the other to explore the rest of the cave. The group with Jon first headed down to the Hippodrome and to the gate at the start of the Full Moon series. Half an hour was spent twiddling the key in the lock, washing with water and then a tin of WD40 was found and that too tried. Eventually we gave up and so after visit to the downstream sump we arrived back at the Hippodrome to meet the other group. They laughed at our misfortune and we sent them to experience the Glory Hole. Our next visit was to the gate to the New Series, here we followed low crawls over calcite flows until we reached Pool Chamber. The duck through the pool was sumped and so we then headed to the muddy ducks. There was a small airspace, but with nothing exciting beyond we elected not to go through. We now headed to the Dungeon pitch to access the lower series. The first group was coming back up the pitch when we got there, all very wet and cold, the passage just after the pitch was sumped and they were not able to get through. Soaked and cold the first group headed back to the surface for early bath and a visit to Hitch & Hike. The second group went down and tried to find a legendary pitch bypass crawl. Keith was sent in first followed by Brendan, and then there was not room for Mark to follow. Keith persevered along a flat out crawl until he dared go no further and so slowly and painfully backed out. We now headed out, with a brief stop to explore Agony Crawl, that Becca had chosen as her group's route into the cave!

Keith Edwards - Dungeon Pitch - Bagshawe Caverns

Carl Knott Bagshawe Caverns

Mark Burkey - Bagshawe Caverns

Keith Edwards - Bagshawe Caverns

Post trip we headed back to the Shoulder of Mutton for large portions of steak & ale pie, lasagne and home made chips. A great end to a fine year of caving, or perhaps in mind of the date a great start to 2014.

Present: Jessica Burkey, Mark Burkey, Keith Edwards, Carl Knott, Ben Marklew, Grant Wilkes, Andy Grimes, Becca Kirkpatrick, Amy Sawyer and Brendan Marris
Guide from Eldon PC Jon Pemberton

A trip to Neil Moss Chamber Peak Cavern

After having to divert because of a road closure Jess and I arrived quarter of an hour late at Mr Grimes place to find him sitting in the car waiting. 

Fortunately it was a clear run and we made good time to the Chapel arriving at 9.05 to find Ben and Loz already there and waiting.

We headed off at around 10 to a very festive looking show cave entrance and were soon sliding our way down toward Five Arches and on through the Mucky Ducks to the start of Pickerings passage.

We made short work of the crawl before sliding over the block and on through the ‘Eye Hole’ slot and slippery rope climbs.

A final chilly, waist deep pool, and we had arrived in Neil Moss Chamber.

Jess looking good as ever as she navigates the 'Eye Hole'

Loz at the stunning calcite formations in Neil Moss Chamber

The team in front of the tube where Neil Moss is Entombed

Ben and I continued on with me getting firmly wedged as usual. Ben slipped through with ease and checked out the final chamber to see if it was worth me fighting my way through, but (fortunately) there were no rewards worthy of the efforts and bruised ribs, so we re-joined the group to take a few pictures. I managed to persuade Ben and Loz to hang around in the pool at the bottom of the chamber for a final picture before heading back.  

Some people just don't know how to suffer for my art…..Ben stop shaking you're making it hard to focus!

The challenges all seemed easier on the return and we were soon heading off to Surprise View and down the ladder to check out Buxton water Sump. Andy then led Ben and Loz toward Lake Passage whilst Jess and I took a couple more pictures before stomping along the stream way to catch up with the others. Missing the climb up we were at Boulder Hall before we released we had gone too far and about faced.

This time Andy spotted the way to the passage but was most disappointed when the sump turned out to be a rather spacious duck!

With all our objectives completed we headed out for a well-deserved cuppa and chat with the locals. 

A great day out, many thanks to Andy for leading it.

Jess in a very low main stream way

Present: Andy Grimes, Loz Appleby, Ben Marklew, Jessica Burkey & Mark Burkey