Present: Dave, Andy, Julia, Bec, Anthony, Al, Karen, James, Andrew
Katrina was ill so decided not to come, just as well because Al’s car wouldn’t have even managed Collingwood drive with another person in it. We raced to Bernies nearly dieing when Al’s brakes failed on the way. (Not true. They worked perfectly, just the road didn’t work beneath the wheels! (Al(again)))
When we finally got to the Hill Inn where we parked the car the four of us who were doing SRT (Dave, Andy, Julia and Bec) got the kit on. It turned out that Andy had eaten one too many pies to easily get Anthony’s harness on. When we began the mile walk to the cave Andy and I decided we needed the loo, but would have to wait ’til we came out of the cave, because it was too hard to get the gear off.
After the tenth stile Anthony and Al spent about five minutes trying to find Sunset entrance which after alot of “volunteers” to help Anthony rig we went down. Julia, full of misplaced enthusiasm, scampered down the cave with rope in hand. We slid down most of the six foot waterfalls, but unfortunately Karen slid a bit too much on the last one landing lightly when she grabbed the rope.
At the top of the big pitch Al and Anthony showed us how to tie figure of eights for when Bec does her trip next term (scary or what!) Julia went down the pitch on SRT first to see if the ladder reached the bottom. We couldn’t hear what she said so I went down too. It was only about five foot short so we said it was ok. Bec was volunteered to belay and when Anthony got to the last bit of the ladder he decided to test her skills. Unfortunately when he jumped off his foot got caught in the ladder and he swung round landing on his head. Everyone went white but he was ok. At the bottom of the pitch Andrew Al and James had a look at the new bit found in the ’60s. On the way up, Andrew (on his first ladder) struggled near the top. It was a bastard long ladder. James is now an officially bastard hard caver as he said he liked this ladder!
We came out quickly (Andy, Dave and Julia waited ages) and after we pushed Al’s car to get it started we got to the Station Inn early. Bec and Al wrote up the first week’s trip on the back of a beer mat and we decided that if we ever ran out of rope we could plait people’s hair. Anthony’s beard would make at least three feet! Still being early we had lots of time for the kebabs.
The day after when we were washing Andrew’s tracksuit bottoms that he’d left in Al’s car we found his room key! He’d left it in his pocket. A lovely end to his day.
Dave Gelsthorpe