Present: Al, Mark, Martin, Chris F, James, Andy, Chris R, Katrina
Caving Ditty – Giants Hole
Caving in mud
Is reasonably good
Caving in the dry
Never makes me cry
Come to a wet bit,
things go awry,
‘cos you’ll generally find
it suddenly gets s**t.
Al Cook
After caving in Giants we let off fireworks. Great fun was had by all. Giants was wet. The End.
Chris F and R
4/11/01 – Peak Cavern
AAARRRGGGGHHHH!!! Its 8:55 in the morning, we’ve just got up, had breakfast and packed the cars, and are speeding to the TSG hut in Castleton! Supposedly we are to arrive by 9:15ish, Al did his best, and we got there just in time! Then with a lot of running back and forth from the car to the changing room (which was really warm – the only incentive to cave!) When eventually we got into the cave, we headed upstream, until eventually we got to these ducky bits, that didn’t look particularly attractive! At this point I think I nearly cried, having managed to stay dry for so long! After a couple of these we carried on until we got to this passage off on the right. Along this smaller passage, we found this room; we’re not sure which one! But it had these really large crystals in – they were HUGE! So we stared in fascination for some time, before continuing. Eventually we got to ‘Surprise View’ and a couple of us went down and to the left – eventually we hit the Buxton waters sump I think (well it was sumped anyway!). There was loads of algae that was growing, and that had been precipitated by all the nasty stuff in the stream way, so here we tried not to get wet! We decided that it was perhaps a bit unfair looking the other way, so decided to go back up the ladder, and out.
As usual it seemed so much colder the second time round, as the water overflowed the wellies, but we were soon back on the surface, only to be informed by the man on the gate of the show cave that above us on the farmland medi-waste, paper pulp, animal rubbish etc… was causing the algal bloom – really what we wanted to hear!!! Thanks! So we went, got changed, had a coffee in this really posh little café (we aren’t going to give you the name of the place otherwise some will think we’re right wimps! (it was the nearest place though to go and warm up in!)
When we got home I washed thoroughly – even my caving stuff!!! (Not that I ever do that!) but on the whole I think everyone enjoyed the trip, and had on the whole a really good weekend!
The End.
Mark