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Present: Al, Hannah, Zara, Chris Randen, Tom Moorcroft, Alex Scown, Dave Walker, Richard Culver

We did…Heron Pot. Yey!

Utterly fafftastic. The tone of the day was set early on with the search for enough SRT kits to fit out the enormous party of cavers. Accomplished. Then we realised Chris M’s car was parked such that Al’s car was somewhat inaccessible, so in true DUSA style we hit upon the simply brilliant idea of pushing the car out of the way. Unfortunately the steering lock was on, and the speleo gods deemed to make it impossible to push the car back into the car park by changing the laws of physics and also moving the gateposts, so that the car wouldn’t make the corner. In fact it got worse with each attempt. We abandoned it temporarily, then Al hit upon the idea of bouncing the front of the car round. Unfortunately, Chris’ £50 car is a beast and incredibly heavy. Fence posts were employed and the impossible was achieved. Hoo-ray!

Following further faff and essential purchase of sexy new wetsuits for Richard and Zara we changed and plodded across the moor to the top entrance. Cool little cave, a bit damp in places due to recent weather. Zara’s broken wrist gave me a good excuse not to do the (admittedly fairly simple) pitch and we raced back out the way we had come. I had messed up on rope lengths, rendering a pull through as planned impossible, so half the remaining party made it through to the duck and bottom exit, while Chris, Alex and Tom retraced their steps (?) up the ropes.

Thereafter things got silly and a firework was launched in Yordas main chamber, much to the consternation of the less-than-impressed looking cavers who swiftly appeared out of the top entrance. We marvelled at the blue smoke issuing forth from the entrance and then thought about what we had done…then legged it as fast as our dignities would allow us. Having alighted on the usual back up plan of ‘It’s OK, were from Newcastle…’ we changed nervously and sped off into the distance, the killer dogs chasing us out of the valley. (That last bit may have been an exaggeration…)

Total time spent underground by Hannah and Zara = 1 hour. Spectacular!