Duck Hunting In Upper Flood Swallet.

Dudley members were invited to attend the first 'Cave Fest' event being held in the mendips with Jess, myself and Loz signing up.

Jess and I headed down on the Friday evening. Loz had put her name down for a trip in to St Cuthberts on the Saturday but found herself running late and wound up on a trip in to Eastwater Cavern instead.

Surprised that no one had put their names down for Saturdays trip in to Upper flood swallet, Jess and I eagerly booked the trip. We were joined by Duncan Simey and met up on the green at quarter to ten to find our leader for the day Bill Chadwick, one of the original discoverers of Neverland.

Eager to get going Bill suggested we head straight off and so we were soon changed at the MCG hut and on our way.
En-route I found I had lost a glove and told the others to carry on and I would catch them up, but not only did I not manage to find said glove, but found myself wandering the fields until Jess popped her head up and called me over.
Our next few hours would be spent crawling and squeezing through the entrance series. Bill asked if I fancied cleaning off and going to a little visited area above the duck-under-boss to get a photo of the duck pond and I, of course, jumped at the chance. The Duck Pond is very much like pork pie passage and is a flat out crawl with no way of lighting the chamber any other way than from the front. With this done I headed back and began to make my way back down when Jess came around the corner and lit up the curtains in front of me and so another ten minutes were spent photographing this before turning around to grab a shot of Bill coming back down the Boss.
Further soakings and mud crawls brought us to the wash off point where we stripped down to our undersuits and wet socks before heading to grab a quick shot at Curtain Climb. With this done Jess and I took a few photo's in the connecting passage whilst Duncan, who had never visited Neverland before, went off with Bill.
Suitably impressed the others returned from the stunning area of the cave and we begun our journey back out. The trip in had been great fun sliding and squeezing our way through. On the return it felt a little tougher on the knees!
After six hours underground we re-emerged on the surface and headed off to find out how Loz had got on in Eastwater.

The Duck Pond

The Zig Zags

The Duck-Under-Boss

Curtain Climb

Curtain Passage

Present: Jessica Burkey, Mark Burkey, Duncan Simey and trip leader Bill Chadwick

Upper Flood Swallet

After finishing working in Wales at Midnight the day before Jess and I were looking forward to being up at 7am to get down to the Mendips for our outing in Upper Flood......not.
Our mood wasn't helped by a bouncy Chloe turning up bright and breezy looking forward to her outing. We stopped off en route for coffee and pastries to help wake us up and made good time getting to the MCG hut where we were to meet our leader for the day, Jude.
We quickly changed and made our way to the unassuming entrance. The trip in was far more leisurely than my first 3 1/2 hour sprint through and at this pace I began to relax and enjoy the sporty nature of the entrance series. At the old squeeze in the boulder choke Chloe and Jess had a slide through...I still remembered the bruising on my ribs from the last time I pushed through, so decided to take the bypass this time. On our way through to Neverland we stripped off our over suits and took a trip to see the stunning curtain at the ladder climb. On our way up to Neverland we all emitted the customary oohs and aahs as the beautiful white calcite came in to view. Even though I had been before I couldn't help but join in the vocal appreciation. Jude was kind enough to allow me time to take a few quick shots before we begun to chill down and headed back to put our suits back on. We soon warmed up as we headed back through Royal Icing Junction, Plank Chamber and Duck Under Boss. I took advantage of this to take my photographic objective of the trip, a chamber shot of The Departure Lounge. With this objective met we made our way back through the Choke and were soon making our way back up the tube to a reasonably warm and sunny afternoon. Back at the MCG we warmed ourselves with a quick shower, thanked Jude for a great trip and headed back toward Priddy for our, now customary, Butcombe pie at the Queen Vic.

Neverland

The Departure Lounge

Present: Chloe Burney, Jess Burkey, Mark Burkey and many thanks to our leader Jude.

Pork Pies For Lunch In The Mendips

Not strictly a Dudley trip as this was arranged be Claire Vivian for us as SWCC members. It was a trip I had been looking forward to for some time and when places were offered up through South Wales Caving Club I contacted claire asking to put our names down. 

We started the day with a Priddy good breakfast before Chloe and Jess headed off for a trip in to Reservoir Hole, whilst Myself Keith and Brendan went to Meet our leader for Upper Flood at the MCG hut. 

After a brief introduction to Tarn, our guide for the day, we changed and headed down the lane to the cave entrance. The entrance series consists of lots of crawling before reaching the rather moist lavatory trap, canal and puddle lake. After these you arrive at the Red room which spells the end of the crawls through water and spells the start of the infamous boulder choke. I was aware that there used to be a squeeze box test to see if you could fit through the tight contortions of the boulder choke and nervously followed the others in to the twists and turns. Fortunately nothing seemed too tight until........ We were chatting to Tarn about the squeeze box and she mentioned that there used to be a rather tight squeeze, but a bypass had been made to it. Keith wanted to do the old route through the boulders and followed as Tarn led through a tight letterbox. I stupidly said I wanted to give it a go and after huffing, puffing, turning this way and that decided that the bypass was the only way I was going to get to the end of the cave. From the other side I could manage to force myself up through the letterbox, but not without bruising a couple of ribs which would be tender for the rest of the weekend :/ 

Exiting the choke we were told to make sure we didn't follow the choke in to a passageway named 'Call The Samaritans' which judging by the name wasn't something we really wanted to encounter! From here the going became easier again and we were soon heading through Royal Icing Passage before having to strip off our over suits and clean our boots and gloves in stream way. From this point everything we climbed a brilliant white calcite flow in to Pork Pie Passage where the stunning formations are some of the most pristine white I have seen. 

We each took it in turns to flat out crawl under formations to take in the very unusual and beautiful Pork Pie Formations before I pulled out my camera to take a shot or two of the calcite flows. 

Unfortunately I had a flash gun fail after the first couple of shots which was probably just as well as Tarn announced that she had an appointment in Oxford so had only put 4pm on our callout (Still...a good excuse to re-visit some time)

It had taken 3 hours to get to this point and we now had just 2hrs to do the reverse. The exit from the cave was something of a blur as we all picked up the pace. Tarn was like a whippet back through the choke and even grabbed both Keith's bag and my Box to slow herself enough so the rest of us could keep up with her! We exited on time though in to a very chilled afternoon and were glad of the warm showers back at the MCG hut. 

We said our goodbye's to Tarn and thanked her for the trip before heading in to Priddy to meet up with the girls and grab a meal at the Queen Victoria.

Keith in Pork Pie Passage

The Pork Pie Formations

Present: Keith Edwards, Brendan Marris & Mark Burkey