Getting Around To See The Swiss Village In Aggy

Having been led once on our infamous 'Outer Circle' trip I fancied both seeing if I could find my way around the Inner circle and seeing The Swiss Village, so a trip in to Aggy was decided for Saturdays trip.
Brendan and I met with Chloe and Mark at Luigi's for breakfast before heading to a quite busy White Walls.
There were no less than 5 groups heading in to Agen Allwedd this fine Saturday morning, and so we kept a reasonably sedate pace in through the entrance series.
My navigation held through to Selenite needle passage, where I would have missed this completely without Brendan there!
After this I had no problem with navigation the rest of the trip and so we took a little time to take a few photo's just for a change!
We exited within our call out time for which Jess was grateful and made our way to the Indian in Crickhowell to refuel before heading on to the SWCC for our next days adventures.

Navigating Turkey Stream Way (Photo Brendan Marris)

Gigantic Junction (Photo Brendan Marris)

Selenite Needle Passage (Photo Brendan Marris)

Swiss Village (Photo Mark Burkey)

St Pauls (Photo Mark Burkey)

Present: Mark Burkey, Mark Burgess, Chloe Burney & Brendan Marris

Light Work in Ogof Craig A Ffynnon

With Christmas and foreign caving trips out the way, it was back to caving in the cold and wet of the UK. Ed was joining us for his first trip with The Dudley and so we decided to head to South Wales for a trip into Ogof Craig A Ffynnon to visit the Hall of the Mountain King. With a good number of people in the party and a sedate trip planned we decided to pack up a tripod and lots and lots of flashguns to take into the cave to re-photograph the fantastically decorated chamber. As is the tradition we met at Luigi's for breakfast before driving around to the cave. The day was bright but cold so we changed quite quickly before heading into the cave led by Mr Burgess. Even though there was no rain a good stream ran along the footpath and water was high in the cave, with foam lines indicating that parts had sumped during the heavy rain earlier in the week. The trip was uneventful, but brightened up with regular vocalisations from Ed as we made our way through squeezes, low sections and especially the wet bits. We arrived at the Hall of the Mountain King to unpack the photographic gear while the rest of the group had a look around. Mark found that a Daren Drum with four flashguns and a set of walkie talkies had leaked, making the contents unusable. Batteries were taken out of the units and wiped dry with cloths before we set up with the working kit we had. A tripod was set up and with the help of the group, the nine working flashguns were placed in the chamber or hand held to take two shots that were then spliced together to give the wide shot of the chamber below.

Hall of the Mountain King - lit with 9 flashguns

While the gear was packed up some of the group headed into Hurricane Alley through the flat out crawl into the start of the Severn Tunnel. Much noise was made by certain people as they went through the squeezes and wet bits. Mark Burgess had a cut to his eyelid as he banged into rock in the squeeze, emerging bleeding and swollen. We then regrouped and headed out noticing that the water levels had dropped somewhat while we had been underground.

Present: Mark Burkey, Jess Burkey, Chloe Burney, Mark Burgess, Ed Simkins and Brendan Marris

An Ace Adventure In Agen Allwedd From Any Perspective

Our original plan for Sunday was to do an inner circle trip in Aggy, but as there had been heavy rain for the preceding couple of days, and the fact that Chloe turned up after having had only 2 hours sleep the night before, a rather more gentle trip was planned.

The wind and rain buffeted us as we walked the track to the entrance, almost blowing Jess and Chloe off the path at one point!
Glad to be out of the elements we were soon warmed up as we made our way though the entrance series with Jess leading the way through to Barons Chamber.
We continued on with me taking full advantage of the easy passage to play with some different angles photographing Main Passage before dumping the camera gear and heading past the Music Room, Cliffs of Dover and in to the Ace of Spades Stream and Aven Series.

The area is a real 3D maze and the avens had an impressive volume of water cascading from them. At one point Jess led us around a sharp dog leg and in to a very muddy phreatic tube. The tube had an awkward spike of calcite protruding from the ceiling followed be an equally awkward squeeze to emerge head first 8ft above the floor. Past the spike Jess called back for me to grab a welly to stop her from slipping too fast.
I looked through the oppressive bit of passage not looking forward to following her.

Jess was the only one of us who had been in this area of the cave before and eventually coaxed me through with the knowledge that it linked back with the rest of the maze.
Chloe and Mark didn't find the awkward manoeuvre any easier, but managed to join us in the small chamber.
With everyone grouped we pushed through another impressively aqueous aven to find a small chamber blocked with boulders. I had a good hunt around but couldn't find a way on......At this point Jess admitted she hadn't been in this part before and just hadn't wanted to try and climb up to the squeeze by herself!
This proved to be as interesting as she feared and Jess, Chloe and Mark required assistance to get back in the tube and through. This left me flapping like a fish out of water trying to get in a position to get back. Fortunately ,once in the muddy tube, it was heading down dip and the squeeze proved easier in reverse.
We continued investigating every passage until I found a flat out crawl to a particularly loose and uninviting dig. As I backed up a sizeable chunk of rock displaced pinning me. Too heavy to lift I managed to roll it off and was very happy to get back in to more stable passage with nothing more than bruising.
Chloe was looking pretty tired and my adventures with the loose choke made us decide to quit whilst we were ahead.
The exit proved happily uneventful and we were soon hurriedly changing in the damp night air before saying our good byes and heading home.

Gypsum crystals in the floor of Main Passage

Jess leading the children (Playing with perspective shots)

Present: Mark Burgess, Jess Burkey, Chloe Burney & Mark Burkey

A Musical Adventure in Agen Allwedd

After following a rather long diversion as the Heads of the Valley road from SWCC was closed, I arrived half an hour late to the Daren Cilau car park to find Rich, Mat, Ian and Phil just finishing changing.
I told them to head off and I'd catch them up as I know Mike and Andy's party would be already at the entrance waiting,  and begun to kit up.
Half way down the track I managed to catch Phil and Ian and together we continued to the entrance to meet up with the other party.
Andy and the others were sunning themselves waiting for us and we begun to sort out who was going with whom. It was only then that we realised that Rich and Mat were missing. We knew straight away that they must have wound up taking the path which would drop them down the valley and much shouting and whistle blowing began until they eventually emerged.
Rich had originally planned on the inner circle trip but was tired out by the climb back up the valley and elected for a slightly more subdued trip with the rest of us.
Our group of six plodded through the entrance series to emerge in Barons chamber after around an hour. We then begun to head down the stream way, but it was all getting a bit much for Pete who hasn't caved for some time. We adjusted our plan and decided we'd head to the music room instead along with a quick visit for the cliffs of dover for most.
On the way out we paused for a few photos and eventually emerged after 5 hours plodding. Pete looked extremely happy to make it out alive and at one point I actually thought he was going to kiss the ground as he exited....until he saw the sheep muck :)

Main Chamber

The guys playing around in the Music Room

Pete emerges from a hard trip

Present: Mat Maylin, Rich Gibbons, Pete Anstey, Ian Millward, Phil Lester & Mark Burkey

Agen Allwedd the Inner Circle

A pilgrimage to St Pauls Dome and the Inner Circle

As the previous trip earlier in the year only got us as far as Turkey Pool, we were determined that our second outing into Aggy would see us reach the inner circle. We gathered at the car park in good time to make this happen and after a number of unscheduled delays we eventually made our way to the entrance.

Double checking that nobody in the group needed to be anywhere later that evening we swiftly made our way in through the entrance series to Barons Chamber.

Dropping off the main passage into the stream way we made our way to the 2^nd boulder choke, where it seems I may have attempted to eliminate Andy G from the group by sending him up into a small choked dead-end – Immediately it all came back to me and I spotted the correct way through and (with only the soles of his boots visible, but his vocal cords still in perfect working order), Andy G was freed from his confined space with the help from Brian and a bit of elbow grease. We continued to make easy work of some climbs down and a short traverse into the main streamway where (with a few slips here and there) we soon arrived at Turkey Pool. At reaching this point we were all feeling positive and continued on our quest to reach the Dome, still making good progress with both time and navigation through Selenite Needle Passage to the entrance to Inner circle. We approached the circle anti-clockwise and with energy levels flagging and the two fairly steep scree slopes to tackle we were all relieved when we reached the Dome of St Pauls.

On our return journey, full of good spirits, it seemed that I may have missed a turning and lead the group into a dead-end passage, with us all crashing into the back of each other! I assumed we must have gone wrong somewhere?? We retraced our steps, but on crawling down the adjacent passage I was convinced we’d never come in this way? Eventually we decided to return to Eastern Avenue and retrace our steps, and sure enough we were originally heading in the right direction and It was me that had missed the small opening on the floor back into Selenite Needle Passage!

With the prospect of making it out before sundown we made easy work on our return through the passages and with a few rest stops here and there we were soon on the last leg of the Main Stream Way… this somehow seems to become longer each visit and with it being Marc C's first visit he was convinced we must have gone wrong somewhere - he was convinced that it didn't seem this long on the way in. We checked the survey and reassured him we weren't lost 'but couldn’t quite pinpoint where we actually might be on the map' Luckily, shortly after this we came to the T junction that leads back into Barons chamber and back into the entrance series.

Emerging from the cave to what seemed to be a nice Summer evening we made our way back slowly to the cars. Brian & Andy G were to leave us at this point and Myself and Marc C headed down to the campsite to meet the other groups. Thankfully they had been waiting patiently for our return so that we could all go out and enjoy a curry together.

Trip report: Mike Bonner

Present: Mike Bonner, Andy Grimes, Marc Carney, Brian McDaid

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

Agen Allwedd

With the green light from Wal (the team weather man) informing us that the anticipated snow was now forecast as rain, we arrived at Whitewalls on Saturday morning at 09:00 as planned. With a light dusting of the white stuff and the biting wind blowing we wasted no time changing into our gear and we were soon on our way to the entrance to Agen Allwed.

Our objective was to reach ‘Inner Circle’ but more importantly to enjoy ourselves, give myself and Andy Williams the opportunity to lead and to make sure we resurfaced on time so that Wal was back home for his evening of entertainment.

The four of us signed in for 10:00 with a 17:00 exit time and headed off for Barons Chamber, as we had all previously been in this system before (although for some of us 7+ years ago) we made easy work of route finding through the 1^st boulder choke, and within a short time we had reached the chamber.

After a quick check of the survey, we headed down the mud and boulder floor of Barons chamber. I was leading, keeping a close eye out for the opening to main stream passage which would appear on the right. After descending the mud slope the passage quickly reduced down to a crawl, at which point Andy G advised I should check the survey - the tone of his request raising suspicion as to whether I was guiding them the right way! With the stream flowing towards me and not away from me it was soon clear that I was trying to lead the group up Meander passage, which was a bit of a 'Meander' the wrong way!

Back on track we crawled and squeezed our way towards and through the 2^nd boulder choke.  This involved some interesting route finding between boulders, a number of down climbs and a challenging traverse near the end of the choke.

At this point the survey mentions a "...long section of mostly roomy streamway..." but what we weren't expecting was a much longer (much, much longer!) section of mostly roomy streamway. As time elapsed, I was beginning to think that we must have somehow missed the Northwest Junction, however reassurance from Andy that the chances of missing the junction was highly unlikely due to it being a fairly obvious point, I carried on leading us down stream.

No sooner had we finished this conversation the Northwest Junction came into sight. After another quick rest stop we continued up Turkey Streamway, passing the Beehive Inlet and Calcite Gallery. Keeping an eye on the time we all agreed that we would soon start the long return journey back. Keen to reach a notable point within the system before we retraced our steps I checked the survey. Knowing that we had already passed Turkey Junction I could see that there were only 2 more passages to our right to pass before we would reach Turkey Pool. We continued along the passage and within a short time we reached the corner to Turkey Pool. Andy W and myself had a quick (chilly) dip in the pool before making a u-turn and heading back out, pleased that we had made it to this point.

Andy W took the lead and retraced our steps to the 2^nd boulder choke, we scrambled back up the number of big drops we had encountered on our way in and continued to make good headway through the rest of the choke. Soon we were back in Barons chamber and enjoying watching Andy W search for the entrance point back into the 1^st boulder choke. 

Sticking to the rule of keeping right at all junctions we made our way back to the entrance, signing ourselves out at just before 17:00, so we had made a good judgement to end our trip when we did.

A chilly, but less windy walk back to the car and a much needed (and well deserved) stop off for a pint on our drive home made for an excellent end to a successful trip.

report by ... Mike Bonner 

present ..Mike Bonner, Andy Grimes, Steve Wallis, Andy Williams

Going in Circles - Five Girls & a Fat Bloke!

After 12 hrs of caving on the Saturday, on Sunday Jess and I staggered in for breakfast to find half the group had decided one day's adventures had been enough for them. This left us with only 6 people looking to go underground. Loz had talked Mel in to doing the outer circle route in Aggy, so it was decided that although it's not a usual Sunday trip, we'd give it a go.
We arranged a 10pm call out with Keith figuring that as we weren't taking camera kit this should give us plenty of time & after the usual faff the group made their way down the escarpment. We logged in at the entrance at 12.30pm and Mel led us through the entrance series to Baron's Chamber in good time. At this point Loz took over the navigation, and as I'd done the Grand Circle route a couple of weeks ago with Brendan, I was able to help through to Northwest Junction. We headed up the Turkey Stream Way and Loz pointed out the other end of Coal Cellar Passage where hopefully we would all be emerging later at the end of the circle. Fun and squeaks were had at Turkey pool and then we headed on to Turkey Chamber.
At this point navigationally everything went a little awry. Loz could remember bits of her previous trip but not in which order they came. At first we thought we were looking for a smaller passage off from the boulder slope and begun down St Valentine's Passage before it became obvious that this was definitely not a trade route and headed over the boulder slope to the correct route toward the Sand Caverns. We were soon crawling and stooping our way down Selenite Needle Passage. Loz thought she remembered a sandy crawl and we made our way through and down a rift in to a series of passages, again it became obvious after a while that this was not the way on and we reversed our way out of what we would later find out was Spiral Passage. Back en route and this time Loz recognised the junction at Eastern Avenue and we stomped our way around the inner circle through to the very impressive Dome Of St Paul's where we spent a little time gazing up at the spectacular ceiling before continuing on. Making our way in to Midsummer Passage we again had navigational difficulties and spent the next hour squirrelling around looking for the way on. Jess pointed out that time was against us and it was decided that if we didn't find the drop in to Coal Cellar Passage in the next 20 minuets that we would have to admit defeat. I found a polished flat out crawl that had been dismissed earlier and pushed through to obviously well travelled passage. We located the squeeze and Loz led the way. She spent a good 5 minutes trying to remember how she actually got through the last time and I began feeling a little uneasy as I saw her struggle through the awkward rift and drop the other side. I then had a go next and found that as well as snug it was extremely awkward and after a couple of attempts backed out to catch my breath and let Chloe have a go. Chloe also found the obstacle quite awkward, but was soon through. I elected to have another go and managed this time to get within a couple of inches from dropping through, with my legs rested on Chloe's head, but I just couldn't find a way to go any further. I couldn't push any further with my arms and couldn't get any purchase with my boots, so again backed out to let Mel and Crystal through. With my oversuit stripped off I had one last go, but again found that it wasn't how tight the obstacle was as much as I just got to a point where I couldn't keep any momentum. Now very aware of the time I sent the group off. We agreed that they would leave a note in the log book to let us know they'd got out ok. Tired and miffed at not getting through I kitted back up. Jess looked as tired as I felt, but I asked her if she felt up to pushing the pace a little so the others didn't have to wait too long at the hut for us and she agreed. We completed the Inner Circle route and continued on, missing the drop back in to the Turkey Stream Way and went on into Frozen River Passage. Fortunately we realised we hadn't been past these pretty formations on the way in and soon found ourselves back on the correct route. We put our heads down and kept pushing on and soon thought we could hear voices. We caught the group at the first climb up to the 2nd boulder choke. Loz looked the freshest out of us and it was agreed that she would run ahead and try to get out to halt the call out. I went with her to assist on the rope climbs till she felt happy and then returned to assist the rest of the group. Crystal looked pretty done in by this point and dug very deep to keep herself smiling and plodding on. We eventually reached the log book at 11pm. Loz had put a smiley by our names to show me she had got out safely. By the time we reached the Hut we found that Loz had a bit of trouble finding the key to get to her phone and Keith had done the prudent thing and initiated the call out. Fortunately a couple of the team live not far from White walls and had come to check things out and found Loz there. We were very glad to have not needed them and all learnt a lesson when it comes to not exceeding the agreed call out.

The Team

Turkey Pool

Present: Chloe Burney, Loz Appleby, Mel Bell, Crystal, Jess Burkey and Mark Burkey

Eat Sleep Cave Repeat. The Time of Our Lives In Daren Cilau

When the White Walls weekend was advertised Becca and Daz contacted me asking if they could have a trip to the Time Machine as a route finding exercise for them in anticipation of a future camping weekend at the Hard Rock Cafe. It is a trip I had heard Keith and Andy G mention a couple of times and a route finding trip I had fancied for a while so agreed to have a go at leading them in.

At the club on Thursday I tried to persuade Mr Edwards to join us and much to my delight he decided to give it a go. Jess, although swearing she would never again do Daren also agreed to give it one last go, and so our team of five was arranged.

Knowing that we would need quite a lot of camera equipment if we were going to try and do the Time Machine justice and also knowing we would need to carry extra food, drink and a first aid kit in with us we emailed Becca the night before to ask if they would mind carrying in some kit; I think I actually used the hook that they would need to carry kit with them to camp so it would be good practice for them :)
As usual our first stop was Luigi's for a good breakfast before heading to White Walls to kit up. Loz was persuaded to give us a lift to the car park (thank you Loz!) and we were enjoying the delights of the entrance crawl by around 11am.
Becca and Daz did a sterling job carrying the heavier bits of kit in, but it did mean the rest of us were able to keep up with them :)
We took a steady pace to Big Chamber and were soon heading off through the crawls to St Valentines Chamber.
Keith and I led off down Preliminary Passage and waited at the bottom of the Ladder climb for the others to catch up.
Jess led up the pitches and was unusually quiet which is not like her. I called up to ask if she was ok....I figured she was either scared or exhausted and called to ask which. After she reached the half way point where there was an awkward change over she called back down to let me know to save my daft questions for when she wasn't using all her effort to climb an awkward pitch.
Keith went up next to take some video and was followed by a very vocal Becca, whom when asked if She wanted me to take the tackle bag declined and climbed with it on her back!
Everyone had struggled getting up the ladder and having belayed everyone my arms were feeling pumped and I was quite nervous.
I shot up the first section of ladder and although awkward didn't find it too bad to the change over to the second section. Here I realised what all the fuss was about as I climbed the overhanging slippery rungs. Red faced, puffing, I worried that my arms wouldn't hold me as I clung desperately to the chain at the top and pulled myself to safety. How Becca managed with a heavy tackle bag on her back was something else.

The traverse and rope climbs caused no problems and we were soon dropping down in to White passage. As we continued onward Keith realised that when he thought he had reached the Time Machine on a previous trip he had actually been only minutes away.
We emerged at the top of  huge boulder slope in to the Time Machine itself and followed markers through to the drop down to The Bonsai Stream Way.
We popped up to the taped section to take a look at one end of the Crystal Oxbow before continuing on to Crystal inlet where we paused for photo's at the services sign.

Time was ticking by and everyone was aware of the return trip that awaited us, so it was decided that we would head back at this point taking some photographs and video as we went.
I could see that the extra weight had taken it's toll a little on Becca and Daz so the kit was re-distributed so that they only had one piece of kit to carry back.

The return trip went well until the entrance crawls where the tired group began to struggle a little in the crawls. Daz kept us entertained with a constant stream of expletives some of which I had never even heard before! He even managed to loose a welly at one point (A trick taught to him by Becca no doubt ;)

Finally after about 12 hours we emerged to find Snow coming down on the escarpment and were very glad to get back to the hut.

All that was left was to eat, sleep and cave the Sunday.....but that's another story.

Present: Keith Edwards, Jess Burkey, Becca Kirkpatrick, Daz Long and Mark Burkey

The entrance crawl

The 65ft Ladder pitch

The Time Machine

The Bonsai Formation by Keith Edwards....and perhaps a little creative editing by Mr Marris :)

Daz and Becca at the services sign

Chilling on Ogof Cnwc

With a fantastic turn out for the Whitewalls weekend, I was asked to lead a group of 5 in to Ogof Cnwc.
After playing taxi for the Daren Cilau trip guys (all 5 of them in one go), I drove Mike & Lucy while Carl took Pablo, I’d recommended driving up to the car park as there was a good chance it would be snowing when we came out.
This was to be Pablo’s introduction to caving in the UK, it had been hinted that it might be a little colder than Spain but he seemed keen, even bought his GoPro!
I’d only ever come out of Cnwc as part of the Daren Cilau through trip and only done that twice, but somehow managed to go straight to the entrance. Carl had already commented on how much he’d ‘enjoyed’ the walk up but it had become apparent we might need a translator, not for Pablo but Carl.
I led my willing victims in through the puddles to a climb down, the crawl in seemed longer than I remembered, nor did I remember climb down, but then with a bit more crawling I saw the plank of wood which I’d enjoyed sliding down on the way out on the previous trips and recognised we were at the top of the scaffold. The water level in the sump at the bottom was pretty close to the bottom of the scaffold and everyone did well to get through without getting soaked.
We soon emerged in to Price’s Prophecy, I realised this was the 1st trip I’d ever been on without someone wearing a Scurion, possibly why the formations seemed a bit darker than last time, but on the plus at no point did I nearly trip over in my own shadow ☺.
We went left to explore the passage way in the opposite way to Busman’s Holiday, heading towards a boulder pile which met the roof it seem this would be a short trip but then found a way through on in to a series of small boulder chambers linked by chokes. One of which involved folding yourself in half to get round a hairpin bend and in to a body length space, the way on blocked by a huge boulder, however there was enough room to stand up if you were able to, further contortion required and a climb up over said huge boulder.
The final little chamber had a nice little formation which Carl happy snapped with his phone, each of us posing, then a little photo bombing as Mike had got bored of doing back lighting and jumped in shot behind Pablo ☺.





After squirrelling about a bit we decided we had exhausted all obvious ways on, so headed back at a leisurely pace. The boulder choke which had required contortion on the way in was a little more interesting on the way out, I went 1st going head 1st off the top of the big flat topped boulder and did some sort of handstand which went better than planned (didn’t land on my face!). The others seemed to manage it no probs, even the awkward hairpin bend which I think is were Carl said something about how much he liked caving and couldn’t recall why he didn’t come more often (thought I might have remembered that wrong).
We pottered back to Price’s Prophecy reaching the turn off for prices dig, we decided we had time to wonder on to Busman’s Holiday and aimed to find the 1st ladder climb down. This involve more crawling than I recalled, this was supposed to be a nice easy trip! Carl, Mike and I pressed through the low crawl to the boulder chamber where we thought we should find the climb down through the boulders, but spent 20 minutes searching before returning back to the other two, we headed back to Price’s and made our way out.
We were out in day light and surprisingly no form of precipitation falling on us, so it turned out to be a nice chilled trip, with commentary from Carl about his love for caving, some of which Pablo recorded, plus Lucy’s unintentional amusing banter. I think Pablo enjoyed it as he asked lots of questions about the cave which I mainly didn’t know the answer to (sorry ask Brendan). Anyway thanks guys!

Present: Pablo Lukather, Mike Bonner, Lucy Collins, Carl Knott and Loz Appleby

The Battle of Trafalgar. A trip to Iles Inlet & The Courtesan

For our first trip of the caving year I have been privileged to tick off another of my bucket list of trips. I had seen stunning photographs which Brendan had taken of the Courtesan formation and read horrendous accounts of the trip to it with the mile long Southern Stream passage and numerous squeezes and contortions to get to this stunning area of the cave.

Sounded like just my kind of thing, so an email was put out and a team of six arranged to meet at White Walls for 9am.
After changing in a cold drizzle we made our way down the escarpment to the entrance, logging in at 10.15am.
We made good time through the entrance series arriving at Barons Chamber after only 45mins and were in good spirits as we dropped out of Main Passage in to Southern Stream.
I had only been in this passage once before on our Grand Circle trip and it hadn't seemed too bad. For some reason, not sure if it was the fact I was carrying a hefty camera box or the cold I still hadn't managed to kick off, but the slog up the stream definitely felt more tiring and monotonous this time around.
We arrived at the climb out to Priory Road after 3 hours of caving. Another 20 minutes of sandy, mostly stooping passage, followed till we reached the start of Iles Inlet. This is a collection of very impressive digs in sandy passage creating numerous contortions, U-bends, dog-legs and squeezes. I had been quite nervous of this section having read other trip reports where people had trouble with the dog-leg squeeze / contortions, but these turned out to be more fun than fright and the entire group followed Brendan through with ease.
Even though I had done some research and had survey with us it would have taken some time poking around route finding had it not been for Brendan being there. The descriptions and survey itself give the impression of the route being far more straight forward than it was.
With almost 4hrs clocked up Brendan announced we had reached the junction where Corkscrew Chamber split from Trafalgar Passage.
First we headed up Trafalgar to take a look at the impressive formations, helictites, urchins, stalactites and stalagmites, the passage ending in a sand filled dig.
After this we returned to the branch up to Corkscrew Chamber. Again I had read two reports of people coming all this way only to find they could not get through the last squeeze in to the chamber.
Brendan thrutched up the awkward tube first and I followed........I have to say after a month of turkey and mince pies I was expecting to have far more trouble than I did. In fact I found this last obstacle quite easy, my leg dropped down a slot and found foot holds easily and there turned out to be no actual squeeze.
What you enter in to is just gob smacking. Immediately you are face to face with the Courtesan itself and brilliant white formations are just everywhere. As you begin to look at the delicate crystal structures and calcite formations you notice the very unusual corkscrew helictites which give the chamber its name.
With everyone through we took some time to try and photograph some of this extraordinary chamber. Loz had a squirrel off toward Broadside whilst we did so and re-joined us as we exited for a couple of quick shots back in Trafalgar.
After over an hour it was time to begin our exit. Everyone had chilled down somewhat and Jess handed out some of our spare hand warmers which were immediately stuffed in all sorts of places that I shan't go in to in this blog!
Again the Iles Inlet proved little problem on exit. Chloe found at one point it does make a difference which arm you put ahead of you in a squeeze through....having your arm pinned under you apparently  doesn't help much as you try to thrutch through a U-Bend.
Soon we were back in Southern Stream Passage and Brendan's warning on the way in that it feels a lot longer on the way out was spot on.
Forever we crawled flat out through water, or stooped between rock. Occasionally we'd be able to stand at full height, but this would just be a tease and would only last a moment before you were stooped or on your knees again.
Finally we arrived back in Main Passage where everyone stretched out their backs and were glad to be able to walk stood upright.
We reversed our route through the choke and rest of the entrance series to exit in to the night skies after around 10hrs underground.
We had hoped to stay over at White walls, but unfortunately there was no one around at the hut. After a brief discussion we decided we'd head to Abergavenny for a meal together before heading our separate ways.

A chilly walk down the escarpment

Mel putting a hand warmer where other hand warmers just can't reach!

Mel at The Courtesan

Chloe at The Courtesan

Jess in Trafalgar Passage

Brendan in Corkscrew Chamber

Loz in Trafalgar Passage

Present: Mel Bell, Chloe Burney, Loz Appleby, Jess Burkey, Brendan Marris & Mark Burkey

Ogof Pen Eryr - the day after the cave before

Jess recommended this small cave of only 420m length for me and Daz on Sunday, as she thought we would enjoy its squirrely nature. Mel joined us as she was looking for a short outing and an early bath to get back to West Mids for the evening.
It is basically a straight line, and obviously accessible to local kids judging by the graffiti (including direction arrows!) and glow stick that we spotted on our way in. It's also popular for novices, as it gives a taste of lots of different caving aspects on a mini scale. This means that the way is very smooth in many places, so easy to spot. Yet we all still found it extremely enjoyable.

Early on there is a challenging squeeze, which all three of us agreed was tighter than the infamous Daren Cilau entrance we had been through the previous day. The description told us to thrutch though it which we had a good laugh about as we had no idea what this meant. Whatever it was we had a damn good try and hopefully some thrutching was involved. Some parts were harder going up than down due to the lack of friction and gravity.

The Corkscrew was another nice twisty challenge about two thirds along the cave. At the far end a bedding plane is reached, and passing under this, near to a dig, and then up through some boulders takes you to the final chamber which was well decorated with calcite formations. They are all now completely brown apart from a few patches, but still cool. The cave feels snug overall.

We rested in the final chamber and turned off our lights for a good few minutes to experience what Mel called 'the true dark' together. After that, feeling happy, there was nothing left to do but to turn round and make our exit. This took us much less time than we expected and in something like 40 minutes we had reached the fresh air and the solitary sleeping bat at the cave entrance.

Photo of formations in Pen Eryr by Becca

Trip report: Becca

Present: Becca, Daz and Mel

Eglwys Faen

On entering the system through the Oval Entrance we headed left to explore the Eastern Series. We made our way through the crawls and squeezes leading to the 4m free climb, as this was my first leader trip I was a little apprehensive when faced with what could be a nasty drop, I turned to my two experienced cavers for advice and without hesitation Andy K lowered himself into the opening and one by one guided the rest of the group down. Once we had all regrouped Lucy pointed out that the chamber behind her would be worth checking out. This actually turned out to link in with the main route to the canal, which unfortunately for Lucy was flooded to a level slightly higher than the tops of her wellies. On reaching the sump (normally dry according to the survey) we were faced with a flooded passage, with only a small air gap between water level and the roof of the cave, we discussed the various options (one being that as it was my choice of cave I should be the one to go ahead and investigate) but Ian made a valid point that we could always come back another day and why not continue to explore the ‘dryer’ areas.

With this being the most favoured option we retraced our tracks, making easy work of the 4m climb back to the Aven Entrance where we made a left turn into the Main Chamber. We spent a couple of minutes taking in the scale of the cave until continuing on over to the Western Series. This passage began following a small stream which soon turned from a walk, to a stoop, to a crawl along a smooth sandy surface down into Grump Sump. From here we continued over the concrete dam and along the passage until just reaching the boulder choke. On our return we poked around in a number of smaller passages, but not fully trusting the survey and hearing that some areas of the cave could be unstable, we didn’t want to venture too far from safety.

We retreated back to the Main Chamber where we took a quick rest stop and then headed off to explore the Inner Chamber to the back. This quickly reduced to a long crawl which, with the previous days aches and pains rearing their ugly heads, we decided to leave it for another day. We resurfaced through the Main Entrance agreeing that it was a good cave to finish a good weekend of exploring.

Trip report: Mike Bonner

Present: Mike Bonner, Lucy Collins, Andy Kempster and Ian Millward

Led Astray In Daren Cilau

After a slight false start, with me leading the group out the car park in the direction of Cnwc and not Daren, I got a quick direction check from Mark and then found the start to the notorious entrance crawl.

I reached the section I recalled to be the ‘Vice’ and reported this to the others, though I thought I must be mistaken as it didn’t seem to present a challenge to any of us, only when I got to call box 3 did it confirm that we had passed the vice, much to the disappointment of Daz, Becca and Mel.

My willing victims proficiently wriggled after me and we got to the cascade in 1hr 17mins.

Dropping down in to Jigsaw Passage, I was glad I’d pre read the description “caution” it said, this was one of the accurate pieces of info it provided, there was a slide down on to a slippy boulder, miss it and end up on the calcite slope a few feet lower with repositioned ribs. Everyone chose to use the boulder and exercised good team work curiously guiding the next one down.

On we went through Jigsaw Passage to the random tight spot “The Wriggle” in the massive walking passage and continued to “Big Chamber Nowhere Near The Entrance”, where Mark took us on a quick excursion to find “5 Ways Junction". With “5 Ways” located, Mark went for a further nose while we headed back to Big Chamber, Mark soon rejoined us an off we went down Epocalypse Passage.

And now some rewards for our efforts crawling, Pretties (particularly for Chloe who had just done a straight in and out the entrance crawl on her previous trip). Daz and Becca cooed appreciatively at each formation, Daz literally head over heels about the latter sections of White Company, he couldn’t take his eyes off them to see the slight depression in the floor in front of him which he went A over T into. Mark happy snapped with his shiny new camera and got some cracking shots.

A check with chief time keeper Mel revealed we’d spent a bit too long admiring this 1^st lot of pretties, with more to see and cave to cover we tried to pick up the pace. Passing the other end of Urchin Oxbow and on past the Kitchen, up the boulders, down the boulders via the hole (for those still craving a squeeze) or the step down on to a pile of stones. We did a quick run down in to Urchin Oxbow, with flash guns at the ready, Mark took a few more shots, his catch phrase “this will be the last one” being repeated 3 shots before the actual final pic.

Onward to Antler Passage and more pretties, but aware we were up against the clock we didn’t dwell too long. Everyone expertly tackled the numerous up and down climbs overs boulders as well as the climbs up the ladder pitches, where my forearms got a good workout pulling the muddy rope through the figure 8.

It took longer than I remember to reach Busman’s Holiday, more pretties but with little time to our call out we pressed on, my main goal was not to miss the turn in to Prices. Successfully found we headed in to crawly passage which I think Daz, Becca and Mel had been missing since the entrance crawl, to Daz’s delight there was more cold water to go through. Up the scaffold and down the mini slide (plank), Daz, Becca and myself converged at junction, with Mel just behind, we realised Mark and Chloe were not in tow. Mel informed us they were playing in the sump, knowing our call out was due and we were nearly out, I wanted to get to continue to ensure a search party wasn’t on the way.

I conferred with the others about which of the passages to take, deciding the passage with most insects lining the wall was the way out and Daz wanting a decision cos he was getting bitten, I ducked down the turning on the right and a few meters a head saw daylight around the door frame, yay, just the door and we were out!

I tried to pull back the bolt to release the door but found this difficult lying on my front, my 1^st proper lead and I fall at the final hurdle, no! I shifted my weight to get a better grip and tried again but still no luck and managed to trap my finger between the bolt and the mech. Deja vu as last time I was in this cave I had reshaped the adjacent finger, so slightly panicked I called Daz to help! He valiantly came to the rescue and freed my finger, the two of us then tried to open the door, looking at the bolt it was well clear of the frame and the door should open.

We tried again and this time, with little force, the door opened and we found Brendan on the other side, I was pleased to see a familiar face and to know that a full rescue wasn’t on the way despite us being a few minutes past our call out. Brendan then revealed he had had to hold the door closed with both hands to prevent Daz and I from opening it! Ha, ha very funny..

Mark and Chloe emerged just after the rest of us, seeming very pleased with themselves, their faces covered with suspicious brown muck... the explanation was they had both made it through the sump (which is apparently normally closed) but to get through it had required them to remove their helmets, hence the extra face paint.

Mark seemed a little disappointed that I hadn’t waited for him to emerge the other side of the sump, I pointed that it was his choice not to play follow the leader and took a detour to try and drown himself. I think that’s why he pushed me over in the “no one died or nuffink” photo.

Thank you to all for allowing me to lead you astray..!

No One Died or Nuffink!

Mel at the Pagoda

Becca at The White Company

Daz at the Antlers

Chloe in Urchin Oxbow

Trip report: Loz Appleby
Photos: Mark Burkey
Present: Loz, Daz, Becca, Mel, Chloe and Mark

Agen Allwedd

Mike had opted to lead a group into Eglwys Faen on Sunday and he and Lucy both liked the idea of a trip into ‘Aggy' on the Saturday. I still had no firm plans but had full permission from domestic chief of staff for the weekend so over a few pints of tea in the windmill I volunteered to lead us into Aggy and then make up the numbers for Mike on Sunday. Andy W had no plans for Saturday so the four of us decided upon a trip to the Music Hall and back.

We set off at 10:00 hrs from the CSS hut and arrived at the entrance in good time. We kitted up outside and then Lucy volunteered to lead us into the system with the brief that the way to the First Boulder Choke was to keep turning left.

We had a few concerns over the route description, the survey, and the actual route on through the choke and as Lucy called back to us that "it's getting very small and tight down here" she didn't see three big blokes look at each other thinking if the passage was tight for her how on earth are we going to get through. We retraced our steps and decided to look for another possible route forward and as we were doing so we heard voices in the dark. Unfortunately it was another DCC group who had followed us into the system and as they had been into the system before they went passed us and on down the route that Lucy had lead us into.

We waited for them to pass as we didn't want to play follow my leader, and then we continued to explore our way through into the main passage. Lucy had done the right thing by retreating when she felt it was too narrow to go on, but after passing through into the Baron's Chamber she realised that it was easier than she had anticipated. This was the whole focus of the trip for all of us really; having a go at leading a group along a passage that none of had any experience of and seeing where we ended up.

We headed along the main passage following our progress on our cave surveys and identifying the passages off to the sides that we wanted to spend some more time exploring on the way back. In the music hall we met up with the other group again and after exchanging some banter and groan worthy jokes we headed back to explore Southern Stream Passage.

We followed Southern Stream Passage for a short way and then took the side route off into Sandstone Passage but Mike was the only one who managed to pass successfully through the tube into the passage itself. After acknowledging that the round trip that continued on through Southern Stream Passage would be a committing venture, we headed back to the short drop down into Northern Stream Passage. This was smaller and had more water flowing through it and after a short distance along it we decided that we could all say we had been in the passage and as it went nowhere else but simply got smaller and smaller we would happily retreat back to the Main Passage.

We headed back out of the system and once back at the area of the First Boulder Choke we all felt that we had not quite done enough caving so we again so we proceeded to spend nearly an hour exploring all of the different potential routes out from the chamber before again hearing the approach of the other group. They passed out through the passage that we were just about to head down and we unfortunately had to follow them out. But we had done a lot more caving than they had!!!

Once back outside we headed back to the club hut and despite my keen attempts the others would not start "just jogging the last little bit back" to make our call out time, so we were over our allotted time by 2 minutes.

Overall a great day caving in great company and we all learnt a few things along the way!

Trip report: Andy Kempster

Present: Mike Bonner, Lucy Collins, Andy Williams and Andy Kempster

A Musical Introduction to Caving

After  a long trip in Ogof Draenen on the Saturday I think it's fair to say we were all suffering a little from lack of sleep for our Sunday trip in Agen Allwedd for Melissa's introduction to the motley Dudley crew and Caving in general.

Keith, Brendan, Jess and myself managed to drag ourselves to Abergavenny to meet with Melissa and start the day proper with the obligatory Luigi breakfast, whilst Chloe and Loz had a little extra bunk time back at 'White Walls'.

We gave Melissa a decent introduction to procrastination both at Luigi's and back at the Caving hut before finally deciding we could put it off no longer and we'd have to venture underground.
Unfortunately Keith had to be back early and with all the tea drinking time was already getting on, so it was decided that he and Brendan would walk us to the cave to wave us off whilst the rest of us would see if we could find our way through to the 'Music Hall'

Melissa seemed to enjoying the entrance series with it's many crawls, climbs and rift passage and had no trouble with any of these. We were soon through the boulder choke and making our way down the impressive main passage.
Brendan had advised making note of where we exit the choke for the return, so after taking a moment to catch our breath we continued on to our main objective.
Reaching 'The Music Hall' we again took a quick break before having a poke around the the 'Cliffs of Dover' and heading back via diversions to take in the Southern and Main Stream Ways.

Reaching the slope up to the Boulder Choke, thinking it would be fun to let Melissa guide us out,  I quickly realised I hadn't paid quite as much attention as I'd thought and we were soon hitting dead ends causing me to retrace our steps to the drop down I'd missed the first time.
Fortunately this was the only error and we were soon completing the entrance series back out in to a bright, but chilly afternoon.

We finished the day with Myself, Chloe, Loz and Melissa having a quick run through Eglwys Faen to exit via the Waterfall whilst Jess headed back to White Walls to get the kettle on.

Melissa seemed to particularly enjoy the flat out crawl in water to exit, exclaiming 'Holy Bum F**K' as she entered the icy water…up to this point I'd thought her such a polite lady…..still she should fit in a treat at Dudley :)

Present: Melissa, Laura Appleby, Chloe Burney, Jess Burkey & Mark Burkey

Coldfinger? Cold everything in Ogof Draenen!

Our club weekend started with……yep you guessed it, a fine breakfast at Luiggi’s where Brendan, Keith, myself, Jess, Chloe and Loz met up before heading off for the Ogof Draenen car park.

For those that don’t know my first trip in to Draenen lasted only about 20min’s as I was turned around at the awkward rift in the entrance series and so began my obsessive year of dieting!

The flat out entrance crawl, squeezes down body size holes in water and scaffold choke were all as much fun as I remembered, then came the awkward rift……I have to say I don’t know if it is that I am somewhat more experienced or the 3 stone less of belly that made the difference, but I slid through and hardly touched the sides. As it turned out that was a mistake that would cost me the next 11 hrs of my life ;)

That first time I hadn’t made it through Brendan had been on a mission to find a formation called ‘Coldfinger’, an unusual blue stalactite deep within the cave, as fate may have it this was also the objective of that days trip.

Our route took us through Carpet crawl, white arch passage, Lamb and Fox chamber, up to Indiana Highway, along Megadrive, the Nunnery (our first glimpse of something other than muddy boulders for some time) through the chapel choke and then dropped down in to the Wyvern series and on to Wyvern Hall. From here we went in to a Labyrinth of rift passages to finally emerge in Ponderosa before heading back through some flat out crawls to ‘The Blue Room.’ 

Here Brendan, Chloe, Jess and Loz paused to take some photographs of the unusual blue formations whilst Keith and I went off in search of the elusive Coldfinger formations. Unfortunately after a half an hour of searching we still hadn't managed to hunt it down! Defeated we headed back to the group down the unstable slope, almost taking down a large boulder on our way. By now we were several hours in to the trip so it was decided we should begin the long slog out. 

Brendan had navigated brilliantly in to the system and as we made our way out we each seemed to recall a different part of the passage and amazingly we again navigated our way without issue.  

After 12 hours of caving we finally made our way out through the frigid water and mud of the entrance series to a cold and frosty night sky. 

It was midnight before we made our weary way to White walls and 2 am by the time everyone was fed, watered and ready for bed. 

A great club trip only marred by the fact I didn’t manage to find my objective.  So who is up for round two of finding that elusive Coldfinger ;) ?!?!

Pictures by Brendan Marris

Present: Brendan Marris, Keith Edwards, Chloe Burney, Laura Appleby, Jess Burkey and Mark Burkey

Daren Cilau to Cnwc Through Trip

Wanting to cement the route finding for the Daren to Cnwc through trip, Jess, Loz , and I headed in to a very wet Darren crawl for our 5 1/2 hr Sunday trip.

 

Water levels were somewhat higher than I had experienced before and ensured we kept a steady pace to combat against the cold as we made our way in. 

We were soon through the first obstacle, my favourite,  ‘The Vice’, Jess found this so roomy this time around she even tried to thrutch through with a kit bag attached to her belt!

After an hour of crawling and slithering through S-Bends and Stal Squeezes filled with pools of ice cold water we finally reached the end of the crawl and made our way through The Cascade breakthrough choke to Jigsaw passage.

Onward through The Wriggle we were soon at ‘Big Chamber Nowhere Near The Entrance.’ As we were doing well for time we back tracked to mud traverses in Surveyors Passage to have a poke around before continuing on to Epocalypse Passage and The White Company, past The Kitchen, where the water was looking rather brown and muddy, and through the connection to Antler passage where Loz’s skinny butt managed to squeeze down the hole before the climb down.  After proving my butt would not fit through I opted to climb down.

We then took a quick detour to show Loz the stunning Urchin Oxbow before stopping for a drink and chocolate bar at the Antlers formation.

Re-charged we headed out through Antler passage’s numerous climbs and ladders to Busmans Holiday, Prices Prophecy and out through Cnwc in to a snow filled afternoon. 

Navigating the slippery snow covered muddy path proved some fun and we were all glad to get changed and warm.

Stopping off for a well deserved meal on the way back Jess and Loz compared war wounds in the shape of the numerous leopard print like bruises covering their arms and legs, though Loz probably won the competition with nasty swelling and bruising to her finger resulting in an A&E trip on the Monday!

Mark Approaching The Tighter Section of The Vice

Jess admiring the Antlers formation

Jess in Urchin Oxbow

Present: Laura (Loz) Appleby, Jess Burkey & Mark Burkey
(Photo's from our previous trips)