MY FIRST CAVING TRIP

Sunday 25th May 2003 Week 12, Day 61 After a night at a hostel in the Dales, a big breakfast, and some procrastinating at the caving hire store, Bernie's (where Dave decided to FINALLY buy his own furry and oversuit), we - Dave, Sam, Caroline, and Henry) finally headed to Kingsdale for my first experience inside the depths of the Earth. Cassie met us there to join in on the escapade, and was greeted by the bunch of us doing star jumps on the side of the street. We first walked along the route to the right, but came to a pitch that we couldn't climb down due to lack of equipment. Instead, we headed in the opposite direction. Climbed up a short pitch (with extra difficulty on my account but made it with the help of Sam and Henry's combinded strength), squeezed our way through narrow rocks, climbed across two drops and ended up in a cave with a few trickling waterfalls and seating space to watch. It wasn't long before we realised those trickles were turning to torrents and thought we better head back. Panic overcame me as I got my leg stuck inbetween rocks after crossing the drops back into the tight space. Finally, with Caroline on my left, Dave on my right, and Henry underneath (yes, he was nice enough to drop down into the water to push my leg up from beneath), I was unstuck. Caroline and Cassie went on down the pitch to see if the waterlevels were ok for us to make our way out. They came back with bad news. For two hours or so we sat back in the cave, singing silly songs and doing the silly actions to them in order to keep our morale and warmth at high levelsn and we watched as the water levels drop in the cave. I was grateful to get a move on as my feet were starting to fall asleep. On the way out, the water had noticably risen but hadn't blocked our path luckily. Ah, the relief of fresh air and what a beautiful day it was outside! Turns out that the rain that we had experienced before going in, turned into bucketloads, so much so that the stream which was empty when we arrived, was full when we exited six hours later. Very bizarre. We did reward ourselves with chinese takeouts and watching volcano documentries late that night! The sexy-geared-up gang (from left): Cassie, Sam, Henry, Caroline, Dave and me! Dave and I, grateful to be alive. The view upon our return and the noticable difference in the depth of the water! All photos © David G. Birch, 2003.