The day began by me being rudely awoken around 10am by Paul, only around five hours after having gone to bed, who shook me violently and said "Wow, you are a deep sleeper, this is the third time I've tried to wake you. Get up, we are going caving soon". I swiftly got out of bed and sorted my caving kit out, filled my pot of Huel, loaded my kit into Alex's landy and we hit the road. Turns out, eating food while hungover on a very bumpy drive is not a good idea and is not a recommended future activity.
We arrived at the layby and got changed, with Alex soon realising he had brought two wellies of different sizes. Luckily, Olly somehow managed to dig out a pair of the right size from his van. The walk began in lovely sunshine and the cave entrance was soon reached. Paul had given me the heaviest bag and this, combined with my jelly legs from a night of dancing, sobered me up quickly as I moved throughout the cave. Climbing down, and continuing ahead, the way on was left through a short squeeze and crawl. Following the passage we climbed down a lovely naturally stepped climb and waited for the others. Turns out Olly's light hadn't turned on at the entrance and so they had quickly gone back to fetch another one. While waiting we discussed clubs, and Nick said he was in the Craven. I informed him I had just applied to join the Bradford and he was not impressed - ♫Balls to Craven Pothole Club♫.
We continued, through some crawls and down some climbs, until we reached the Bridge. We traversed around the Main Chamber, and Paul pointed out some nice helictites above our heads. We quickly arrived at the Ladder Dig pitch and Olly set to climbing with some ladders in hand. One by one we were belayed up and I was glad to have rid of the heavy bag. Some short crawling ensued after which helictite chamber was reached. We rigged another ladder off a natural as a means of getting up an awkward climb, and were soon thrutching up into the Great Chamber. A lovely, large, well decorated chamber, approximately 40m at its widest point with 25m of height gained by climbing up boulders. I explored while Paul, Olly and Nick took some nice photos. Alex opted for a short nap on a surprisingly comfortable rock and after he woke up we shared a flapjack together. Paul took at least 30 minutes, maybe more, to take some photos and then we were ready to leave for Bat Passage.
Paul remarked that he remembered a different way down from the Great Chamber and so we squeezed down some holes in search of it. After finding the chimney-like squeeze, and slotting ourselves through it, we bumped into Nottingham Uni who were also on a trip into GB. Oli Brain (Nottingham) and I celebrated our first time being underground together, and then we continued on to Bat Passage. Not quite knowing the correct way to reach it, we scrambled up and down, probably rather inefficiently, before Alex found some bat shit and, subsequently, the way on. Bat Passage is finely decorated, and Paul took some nice snaps of us all together. We continued to the end of the passage for completion and then began our journey out. We ran into another uni group (Southampton?) on the way out. Instead of traversing the Bridge, Paul took us up the waterfall climb, which was taped off due to a collapse some years ago. The climb was rather sporting and I believe a waterfall to the face while climbing was the moment I well and truly sobered up. We swiftly left the cave and emerged into glorious sunshine, skipping back through the fields to the cars with glee, ready for the festivities of bonfire night at the BEC. On the drive back Alex and I thought it would be fun to see if we could go and get the landrover stuck up a muddy track up passed the Wessex.
A link to the survey: http://www.ubss.org.uk/resources/proceedings/vol12/UBSS_Proc_12_1_126-0.pdf
