Present: Me (Andy), Dave, Bec, Julia, Anthony, Adam H
I gathered up the non-weekenders on Sat. morning at the infamous car park/circle thing, whatever. Got to Bernies in a good time considering there were 5 people in my car, 3 of which did this cave. Dave + Bec bought matching oversuits all lovely and red!! Bec’s hair clashed dramatically with her red hair (not trying to emphasise red or anything). Stomped up the hill, wandered round a field and eventually found the right entrance. At which point Liverpool I think asked to use our ladder put in by Phil, Chris R and Co. at Valley entrance. How the F*@k they thought they were going to get out had we not been there I have no idea. At this point I noticed my lamp was a bit crappy. Crawled about, a few metres or something and did the first pitch, then noticed that my light had completely failed as the rope was pulled through, oh shit! Dave was my most unfavourite person at this point, illumination officer my ARSE. (Well if you do insist in rapid decharging of your light before we go in the cave, what do you expect? – Dave) – PISS OFF DAVE. Did a crappy wet crawl in the dark while Anthony + Adam rigged the second pitch. Bounced off the walls for several metres and then Dave + Bec kindly allowed me some light to do the next pitch; wahay!! Stomped along a bit and Adam thought we had reached the BIG PITCH – I was scared! So Anthony organised a procedure where we used his light on a ledge half way down. Err but it turned out to be a 5m pitch, so the 63m rope was a bit wasted. Finally got to and did BIG pitch as planned, I almost knocked Anthony off as he was unattached half way down as I pendulumed across. Bec came down and looked positively shocked as she went through the powerful cold wet waterfall on the way down.
To cut a long story short, we did a few more pitches, did some crawling, stomping, a duck, some excellent water slides and went up a ladder. We then got changed rapidly and met up with the KMC lot in the Marton. But our ladder still remained in KMC. Later on it was returned by a non-Liverpool caver, I think, and err I drove home with some people!
Andy Stone