| Destination: |
GB Cave |
Date: |
06 June 2010 |
Party: |
Ali, Lionel, Margot, & Rupert |
Photos: |
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In Brief: On our way to GB we parked the two remaining cars near a farm, helped Big Dave into his knee pads, and went to the entrance. This involved some stepping over fences, and at the second fence Dave halted. He reconsidered; he'd worn himself out too much the day before and felt crap. This is a state in which doing demanding caving is not a good idea. So we wished him a good kip and continued with the four of us. We had started out the Mendip weekend with 13! |
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Continued: We clambered and crawled our way to the Gorge, and soon after, to the Bridge in the Main Chamber. We chose to first cross it, and thus make our way in the direction of Bertie’s Pot, and eventually return the other way, coming out underneath the Bridge. Soon after the bridge there was a corridor where Ali announced he wanted to take some pictures, upon which Lionel immediately began to undress; however, both facts soon turned out to be unrelated. Unfortunately, the picture taking was not as successful as Lionel’s sartorial rearrangement; the one flash gun refused again, and even though we had tested this configuration above ground, the camera did not work with a borrowed flash gun either, due to timing issues. So we packed our gadgets away and stored what we saw in our own memory... After having put the wire ladder we had brought to use we proceeded in the direction of Ladder Dig, where we encountered an almost-sump; bailing out the water made it a passage. And as this water, quite unlike that of sump 1 of Swildon’s, was foul, it had several advantages to get rid of as much of it as practically feasible. After having a look at bat-devoid Bat passage we went looking for the squeeze to the Great Chamber; Ali found it, but did not manage to get through. The other three did, and were rewarded with the chamber’s majestic sight. We squeezed back to Ali, and made our way back to the entrance, taking the alternative route, which involved clambering over nicely frictionally eroded limestone, with pretty bivalves and other fossils in it. At the bridge we heard and saw some other cavers; perhaps surprising that only in the last half hour of the last trip we found out we were not alone, as the Mendip Caves are not the most obscure underground places one could think of. When we were standing amidst the flowers again we could conclude it had been an excellent caving weekend!.Write up by Margot |
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Added 24-06-10 |
