Easter in the luxurious (for caving huts) MNRC accommodation. On the Saturday some of the party did Swildons Round Trip, and some Lionel's, Goatchurch and Sidcot, in diminishing numbers as people sloped off to the pub. Lionel's hole was chosen after much argument, mostly as nobody had been there before and it was suitably dry for Ray, our resident aquaphobe. The cave was soon found to be a near vertical boulder pile, and took over an hour to find the way in, and 10 minutes to find the way out! It was that sort of place. Later when we got back and consulted the guidebook again (they never make sense until you've been in the cave) we found that the point we'd got to amounted to less than half way into the cave - well there's always next time.
Sunday saw a walk guided by Grovel - man of many maps, or climbing extravaganza in Split rock quarry (just out of Wells). Monday Bob wanted to show us a Hardington's pub, nay THE Hardington's Pub, so off to Bristol we went. I was unhappy and wanted to go caving, however a detour was made to the Bristol climbing wall which was excellent.
Steve Openshaw has been keeping up his jetset caving career, and recently spent a month in Laos. I'm not too sure how much cave they found but it seems they spent a lot of time waiting around for permits and stuff, and trying not to catch nasty tropical diseases. The day he left also saw Manchester Airport stuffed to the gills with MUSS folk who were either going away to skiing or coming back from skiing etc...
I finally made it to Otter Hole!!!
Previous attempts have failed because I was on holiday, going to a wedding, it was too wet (aaarrrghhh!!), so, not only do you have to wait ages for a permit, it seems to be virtually impossible to actually go anyway.
Enough whinging. Friday saw Wendy making lots of frantic phone calls and being faxed maps of where to go --- DON'T PANIC!!!
The cave was well worth a visit, and apart from all the pretties is a challenging trip in itself (and we only did about half of it). Ray nearly bottled out after 10 metres of entrance bedding plane, having been wound up about low airspace ducks and rising tides. But Wendy, quite rightly, refused to give him the car keys - he enjoyed the trip in the end.
Once again, a fine time ferreting about the extensive lead mines in the area. Joe had dug into a "new" bit which went on for ages so we had a look round this, all the usual dodgy timbers, buckling walls - good stuff. Since the weather was so nice we spent Sunday on the surface, playing "test the shaft depth with a big rock" game, and collecting interesting glittery rocks.
John is not having a barbecue this year, but will be having 2 babies in October (not John personally you understand but you get the idea). All the best to the Stells.
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