Present: Joe C, Jamie G, Ben B, Stanley M, Abi M
Duration: 3 hrs (maybe 4, can’t remember)
Chrimmermeet 25. The first cave we tackled was Notts Pot. But before I start, we must get a bit of background stuff sorted out.
Friday afternoon/evening – the DUSA cars were unleashed onto the roads stuffed full of kit and one very full of food (including 6 chickens dotted around the car!!). You should expect no different from a DUSA Christmas. Three of these cars were ready for the road trip across the country passing through tank-ridden countryside (although I’ve never actually seen any) and onwards to the NPC hut. The other car not so much. It headed for Carlile, and yes, it took them until Carlile to realise the NPC is nowhere near there. But eventually we all were reunited at the NPC. It was a usual Friday night of a caving weekend, a few games and a bit of beer.
Now that’s out of the way, we can begin our adventure to Notts Pot. We woke bright and early at 8am and had a lovely DUSA breakfast, cooked to perfection by Momma Joe and his crew. After a bit of faff getting everything ready, we were on our way to the cave. We had a speedy get ready while admiring the new cowstails before they inevitably get coated in mud. While changing we got approached by a member of Craven Pothole Club, turns out 15 of them were also going down Notts Pot too. Thankfully, Tom had also booked us into the cave. (Totally unrelated point; booking caves is a good idea…) But now it is up the fell for us, we took maybe 15 mins to reach the cave entrance, and the walk warmed us right up. I started rigging the first pitch after a brief recap on how to tie an alpine butterfly, I may have forgotten how to. Oopsy. It was the worst rigging that Notts Pot had probably ever seen, there was zero slack in the rebelay. But Craven was on hand to sort it out. After this, we headed into the cave, it started with a small crawl into a climb down and along a streamway until the next pitch is met. I redeemed myself on this one and rigged it properly.
We were basically straight into the next pitch. This time Joe was up, he rigged and he rigged and he did the pitch to perfection. We all descended down with ease. Joe again went right ahead with the next pitch. After a bit of searching around for the best natural anchor, he was off. But some pesky goblin must have had taken the bolts for the last rebelay!! Not happy. Joe, Ben and I all looked for them but they were truly gone. It didn’t bother us because we are DUSA cavers and we made it to the bottom with no hassle.
It was not all this easy though, as we had landed in a pit of many Craven people. By the end it was similar to the dance floor in Klute on a busy night. We didn’t hang around for long, it was straight back up. We made it back up the two pitches, that Ben kindly de-rigged for us, and then got stuck in a traffic jam of about 10 Craven members all heading up the next pitch. So we sat around playing a bit of rock paper scissors and chopsticks. I sadly lost both games against Joe, I’ll have to get practising.
Once we were free to carry on, it was smooth sailing out of the cave.
We then marched back to the car and had another rapid change as the rain began. I’m rather scared of the rain after caving, it feels like a cruel punishment that curses you to never be properly dry after changing.
Onwards to Inlgesport! Always my favourite part of the day. Just to drive there would probably be uneventful. This time it was different. We stopped 2 mins down the road to speak to a man flagging us down. His request – a lift to Ingleton. Since we were also heading there, he got piled in the boot. He claimed he was an ex-member of a Manchester caving club and was here to meet some people. Who knows why he was this far up the hill and away from Ingleton, he had no bags and didn’t look like he had been caving. Very very mysterious.
We had a quick stop in Inglesport (never really is that quick, there are too many shiny things to see) to buy a new headlight.
We then headed back to the NPC to begin cooking the DUSA Christmas dinner. After four hours, we served up the scran. We had chicken, roast potatoes, mashed potatoes (which I wasn’t happy with, this doesn’t belong at the Christmas table), carrots with a honey mustard glaze, Yorkshire puddings, and lots more food, including so much garlic! For pudding, we had even more food, yum yum. It’s fair to say we all had a bit of a food coma after this.
A good Saturday on Chrimmermeet.
Notes: a burger patty made purely out of garlic and garlic powder is not tasty. James does not like it! But on the rare occasion that you do have some left over, it could be a good idea to bring it down the cave in case you meet a goblin. To be safe, also bring your trusty silver coin on the off chance they are allergic to garlic.
