Chris wrote:
On a cold winter’s morning, 7 brave souls from Black Rose set off from Whitewalls, into a tremendous winter
landscape. Using the tramroad to contour the hillside to Agen Allwedd, we were blissfully unaware that in a
distant Beverly Hills hotel room, pop icon Whitney Houston was taking her final bath.
Inside the entrance we were mesmerised by all the hibernating lesser horseshoe bats in the tall passage, and
were soon upon the First Choke, which we slithered up as if we were snakes, then gazed in awe at the dramatic Main
Passage. This was followed with gay abandon unto a short crawl into the Main Stream Passage. Another boulder choke (imaginatively called the Second Choke) and a few little crawls and down climbs entertained us on the way to
Northwest Junction, from whence we headed downstream in a glorious stream passage, slowed only
by the almost complete lack of friction underfoot. Some of the water was deep enough that the less
respectable caver could have micturated unnoticed, but of course there was none of that from us. Or
so I am told.
At the Fourth Choke, we climbed up into Biza Passage, and then climbed down some fixed ropes –
into which we do not need to clip cows’ tails- back into the main stream. We then followed more of
this large passage (one might almost say, ‘boulevard’) until we reached another fixed rope, High
Traverse. At the top of this, an inflatable skeleton suspended from the ceiling marked the end of
sphincter control for some cavers. We took a sandy crawl leading on and on into Priory Road, scouting out some
esoteric side-passages along the way to Trafalgar Passage, which has some
of the finest helictites this side of Narnia. A number of pictures were taken by our talented photographers,
cleverly utilising the most handsome model the club has to offer.
Crawling back through Priory Road gave us all a chance to ponder the question of whether or not it
was worth the long detour; of course we all thought it was. The sheer delights of Southern Stream
Passage awaited, with all the wet crawls and boulder obstacles we could wish for. ‘Will this
pleasure never end?’ we cried, and before we knew it we were back flexing our muscles in the main
passage. A pleasant stroll was then all that was needed to see us back into the chiroptera-tastic
entrance series, and a wiggle wiggle wiggle to the end of our lives. Or at least, our day’s caving.
