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Caving Trip to South Wales

28th / 29th June 2003

Organised by Mary Waddington, this trip had many takers and I'll try to remember them all: Mary, Andy, Michael and Sarah Waddington were all there; so were Chris, Sue, Benedict and Freya Sharman; Ursula, Tony and Nellie Seddon; Steve Verity and Ellie; Paul and Alison; and me (Lucia). The weather was splendid, so we were well glad we camped, and we got some sunbathing in as well.

We all arrived at the South Wales Caving Club hut with varying degrees of lateness between 7pm and about 2am, depending on traffic, incompetent route-finding, late nights at work etc. So the next day most of us were up bright and early for a multitude of caving trips: everyone was in OFD 2, as we didn't have an approved leader for OFD 1. OFD, if you want to know, stands for Ogof Fynnon Ddu, although my spell-checker says it's spelt Goof Fanny Dud. It means "Cave of the Black Well". Paul wandered round on the surface meanwhile, looking after his arm. Mary, Steve, Sue and Tony took all the children on a trip around Gnome Passage (good for hide and seek, and murder in the dark, apparently) and the Big Chamber near the Entrance, while Ursula intrepidly led Andy, Chris, Alison and myself down past Gnome Passage and into Salubrious passage. It was quite salubrious actually, with the white mud known as moon milk showing up nicely, and some nice sandy bottoms leading to the formations known as the Trident and the Judge. Dropping down the 5m climb into the next stage of our journey proved a bit much for Alison on this occasion, so she went on a tour of Gnome Passage and Edward's shortcut with Ursula. For those who haven't seen it, Edward's shortcut is a spectacular traverse (i.e. a scary teeter along a ledge 5cm wide, leaning over a 1m wide gap onto the wall opposite) over a boiling stream 20m below. Alison qualifies as hard for just looking at it. Meanwhile, the rest of us went on to the end of the Maypole Inlet, a pretty, black and white winding scalloped passage, then went down a ladder and small climb into the main streamway, and followed it upstream to the 8m Top Waterfall. This involved some nice little waterfalls, some lovely clear, deep, round pools, (especially nice when you're inside them, don't you know) and some interesting traversing. Retracing our steps, more or less, we were out for 6pm and all decamped to the pub for an early supper followed by playing in the garden.

On the Sunday, the children's trip was intrepidly led by Andy, with Steve, Sue, Chris and Ursula in attendance. Bypassing the obvious option of Bridge Cave the children went to Town Drain and scrotted (a caving term for crawling around nasty little passages with rocks and mud in much evidence). This meant there was no underground hide-and-seek today. However some interesting dams were built on the river, by the child-slaves under the orders of Pharaoh Verity, apparently. Paul and Alison wandered around on the surface, looking after Paul's arm. The hard men group, meanwhile, consisting of Tony, Mary and me, repeated yesterday's trip in OFD2 in a little under 4 hours. By a fluke we all managed to meet up in the right place for 4pm and get home in time for work the next day.

And the consequence is that Mary and Tony will organise a repeat trip next year, with Tony inviting one of his mates to lead us around OFD 1, and the children will be able to go and see Bridge Cave. And Nellie looks very sweet in a wetsuit. We hope Paul's arm will be better by then. Thank you Mary for organising the trip.

Lucia Vittorini

Last Modified: 4 August, 2003