OFD
11th to 13th April 2008.
Cavers: Tim, Sooty, Tony and George
Day 1 (Friday)
Tim drove Sooty and George down to South Wales with a nice stop at Costa Coffee enroute. The podcast of the Geoff show help the journey along.
We had fun try to find the keyholder’s house and thanks to a nasty man at a garage we found it. George was impressed with the old ambulance on the drive.
We were soon up at the SWCC cottages and used GPS to find OFD2. We spent 3 hours down circles until Sooty’s marvellous route finding got us to the Trident and the Judge.
Day 2 (Saturday)
Up at 7am for a nice brekkie cooked by Sooty then off at breakneck speed to SWCC
with Sooty at the wheel and George very tension about the fast driving. We saw Pete
Collings-
Soon Pete was expertly guiding us through OFD2 , down the climbs (including one very scarey rift!) to MayPole inlet. The fixed iron ladder in the waterfall was great fun (insert photo!) with beautiful black and white walls. “It’s like the inside of a killer whale” I announced.
The rope climb into the OFD2 streamway was done with George making the biggest splash as he fell in.
A lot of careful walking along the streamway and crawls through chokes got us to Piccadilly (where George fell off the block and we thought he’d died). Then onto divers’ pitch which was a nice easy climb – belayed by Pete (although Tony climbed a bit too fast!). The crawl at the top was fun – unless you have cramp! (like George did!!!).
Some more fine streamway and crawls (did we ever see where the diggers shook hands, Pete?????) got us to the beautiful Marble Showers and out. But not before Pete showed us the bit of the streamway where you can lie down and go with the water!!!
Distance approx 4km, time 6h15m – Sooty won the sweepstake. (10/10 for fun)
Nice meal in Cross Inn and watch “American Pie”
Day 3 (Sunday)
Everyone sore so George went walking and drinking tea whilst Tony forced Sooty and Tim down OFD2 for the third day in a row! I great trip to the Columns general area saw us in a nice chamber in a window, Tim found the route underneath and we took some photos of the chamber then round a loop and over to a gate.
Back to the Big Chamber Near The Entrance (Tony and Sooty via a crawl and Tim the easy way)
Along the traverse and more photos of Tony’s bum then Sooty and Tony climbed now a small bit and Tim found the big bit – which we later followed via Bag pipe chamber to Gnome passage where Sooty lied on the floor for 10 minutes trying to get Tony and the roof formations in. Sooty went on strike as Tony and Tim went to the end of Gnome Passage. Tim fell and hurt his back on the way back but it was still a great trip.
Then back home listening to more of the Geoff Show. Tony roared off in the distance in his Posche.
A fantastic weekend.
Tim
Peter Collings-