Present: Al, Anthony, Julia, Karen
Amazing as it seems four DUSA members were insane enough to go caving on the last day of November. Anthony’s car served us well making it safely to Bernie’s just as Julia’s and my hunger pains were becoming unbearable. When we arrived we got changed thinking it was cold then, little did we know then how warm it would seem on reflection. At 1pm after much SRT adjusting we finally set off. After doing our impression of the hillwalking club we reached the entrance to Link. Which with Al disappearing down, looked increasingly tight. Down in the cave Al lead and failed to instill confidence in his followers by continually saying things like “this MIGHT be the way”. There was a lot of crawling during which I decided that £15 was a small price to pay for knee pads. There was also much sliding down muddy bits and screaming through the Wet Wallows (which we decided to be the best reason for finding a different exit).
Finally we reached the muddy cavern (whose name I’ve forgotten, sorry guys) which in my opinion Anthony and Al had mentioned rather too many times for comfort. As Julia and I followed them in Al and Anthony were already making a collection of mud ammunition which seemed a bit ominous to us both. Suffice it to say if you think you’ve seen mud and you didn’t come caving that Sunday you ain’t seen nothing yet! What started as a little mud fight resulted in everyone scooping up as much mud as they could and hurling it in the general direction of a caving light. Julia seemed to get particularly plastered ending up with not alot but the white of her eyes showing. After several welly rescues and plenty of determination we all got out of the cavern. Luckily we made it the rest of the way without scaring any other cavers.
Julia had a bit of trouble getting out of the exit but seemed spurred on by Al’s gentle persuasion “fucking get up it I’m freezing”. I think the resident bat was also eager for us to leave by the way it kept flying at my face rather worryingly.
Then with minor hypothermia we trekked back to the car. Experienced a new meaning of cold as we got changed and realised caving helmets, long hair and zips are not designed with getting covered in mud in mind. Suffice it to say I’m surprised we didn’t get more odd looks in the pub. Despite getting cold and wet as we tried to explain to the locals in the kebab shop it was actually enjoyable, but then again how could we expect them to understand the insanity of DUSA members.
Merry Christmas everyone.
Karen Wheeler