Cavers: Tim “George Goodfellow” Hallam, Richard ”White Van Man” Sutton, Tony “I don’t carry ropes” Wells and Paul ”Underpants” Humpreys.

Guest star: Gary “one knee pad” Jones

After months of planning the big trip was underway, unfortunately (especially for Tim) without George, who was busy with other stuff.

Sooty picked up Tim and after a 10 minutes diversion to pick up a present from Vera’s were heading towards Humphrey Towers. A pleasant drive down and coffee en-route saw us sat in the layby opposite the Lamb and Fox.

Half an hour later Gary arrived and Tony was guided in by mobile phone.

Paul in the meantime had been on a reccie while Sooty and Tim sat happily in the van.

Once in the cave Gary led and Tim took the rear (no jokes please!).

Gary opened the lock with no difficultly whatsoever much to Paul’s amazement (as he had been pulling at it for some time (no jokes please!).  Tim used the rope to shut the door behind him and off along the entrance crawl, down a climb, crawl, climb, crawl, climb.  This led to an interesting rope climb where Tim swung around madly unable to negotiate any footholds [photo] [drawing A].

Some more crawling led to the T junction and we turned right over what seemed like endless hours on scrambling over mud coated bounders to the sounds of “Come on George” as Tony tried without luck to hurry Tim up.

Gary quotes random names of cave passages to us as we slipped and stumbled across countless boulder filled huge chambers. At least the change of names encouraged us on.

We went to the Nunnery and up a dead end passage and back to find a crawling leading to a pussy shaped hole which we slid down before we did more map reading and Paul went off to drink stagnant water out of some bucket. Then the fun began as we tried here there and everywhere to find the way on. Eventually Tony and Gary went for a reccie as Sooty, Tim and Paul sat down and saved our lights only 5 hours in…

Tim and Paul watched with interest as Sooty’s head dropped by the minute [drawing B].

Eventually Gary returned –

Good news – the way on was found.
Bad news – a squeeze!

Off we went along some nice chambers and tiring rifts before we hit the squeeze. A 30 foot long sideward crawl with a pitch in the middle and at the end.

Order of entry was Gary (no problems), Sooty (minor issues), Tony (fine apart from pushing past the middle pinch to land hard on a rock with a squeal of pain), Tim (stuck at both pinches with bruised ribbed and some panic!) and finally Paul (little problem). [drawing C]

After that we went through some great low canals/ducks with Tim going for maximum velocity and other trying to keep out of the water. [drawing D]

Poor Gary fell at one point and nacked his hand, the others bruised feet etc.

A pleasant crawl along a triangle shaped passage [photos] quickly saw us at the streamway.

A lovely stomp along the streamway saw Paul and Tim dropping behind as they admired some stunning formations. Eventually the tired cavers got back to the T junction and out into a frozen night. Tim forgot his hat.

10 hours of hard caving saw us at the caravan at midnight (via a pub stop for sandwiches and beer) and we stole some beers from the Swindon lads’ caravan.

Saturday 28th March 2009

Cavers: Sooty, Paul, Tony, Tim, Simon Pierson, Jason Hayes and Phil “Rick” White.

Up at 6am to watch the GP qualifying. Tony was in heaven.

The beloved Sooty/Simon (depending on the caravan) fry up was consumed and soon we were driving across the moors to OFD.

Arriving at SWCC cottage we quickly got the key and managed to sort out gear – the walk up the hill was warm – Tim provided the water at the entrance and in we went.

Sooty and Tony kept asking the way on, taking advice from Tim (but not letting him near the front).  Everyone enjoyed the knobs (sorry Gnomes) in Gnome passage and soon were off into the massive hall nearby and carefully down the slope to the exposed climb. Down more boulder slopes until we stopped in the streamway from more water and Simon dropped his camera.

Then off we trotted down the stream in 2 groups (a) Sooty, Tony, Paul and Simon (b) Tim, Phil and Jason until we turned off to admire the Trident.[drawing E]

Then onto the Judge and off to the 4 way junction, left soon saw us at some pretties and down lots and watery meanders until we turned the trip. Back at the 4 way junction Phil and Tim headed out and the rest went off to see a pitch.

Tim got himself and Phil lost on the way out thinking he was in Gnome Passage far to early. The rest caught up and took the piss (correctly so too!).

However Tim and Paul exited first as Sooty got the rest lost on the way out.

Then back to the caravans where Sooty and tony cruelly hid Tim’s glasses for the best part of a day (HA HA HA LADS!!!! – I’ll get you back).

Then off to a local town for beers before Gary and Lucy turned up and we got a curry.

Sunday 29th March 2009

Up at 6am to watch the GP – well done Button!

Another class breakfast and off home – via a pub to try and find Sooty’s hat left on Friday night!