Cruise Meet and first Lead Trad climb!

So I get a text from J at about 5pm asking if I wanted to come with him to the Plymouth Cruisers meet, why not..... so a few hours later I meet him in Plym and we head on down in his VXR, taking the A38 through to Crownhill way, a sketchy moment was had! Lots of speed, little bit of racing with another VXR and a wobbly front end! Ha.

Either way we got there, following a fucking gorgeous GTR in through the gates! Yeah there were some Corsa's and 106's but generally the cars were pretty damn nice, one VX8R put everything to shame, the grumble of that V8 was fucking beautiful! Haha. A few other cars worth mentioning were a few Scoobies, Trans Am, a couple of Evo's and a Clio that had the loudest exhaust I've seen on a car that small! Soon enough PC Plod turned up in vast numbers, riot vans, undercover, the lot! Blocked off the entrance and started checking people out - couple of people got nicked and an arrest or two but generally not too bad. Eventually everyone got fed up of them getting in the way as usual (and considering how many were there, plymouth streets mustve been empty!) so the meet dispersed pretty early around 10pm. Oh well.

Subaru

GTR

VXR8 (yum)

On to the better stuff! Wen't down to the Dewerstone today and after a bit of instruction and gear placement practice I led my first trad climb! Was good, nowhere near as awkward as I'd imagined but the route was relatively easy (VD I think?), a good one to start on though! Looking forward to progression, got a few on my wishlist for the (distant) future. Many thanks to Dan W for the help, unfortunately we're now in his work portfolio hence the pictures below!

28 days later........ or 6 years?

So last night was the usual A&E Social, backwards tops theme this time, rather dissapointing turn out to start with however a few popped in for a chat later on which was good! After about 6 pints myself, T and A got a bit bored and decided we'd go for some post-drinking urb-exing, Dance Academy being the place of choice.

Dance Academy started off as a theater that got converted into a nightclub a decade or so ago, it has been abandoned now for about 6 years, after a drugs bust by the local police force. Since the bust, not a lot has changed - other than the building is rapidly deteriorating.

I ran back to my place beforehand to grab a few head torches and off we went, our usual route in and some bimbling and crawling led us to the main auditorium - its absolubtly huge, and in its own unique way still very beautiful, it was my second time there so I knew where most things were so we went off for ganders. Bottles of Reef and Smirnoff can still be seen on the tables, the same place they likely were when the drugs bust happened - its quite interesting to see a lot of things still very much in-situ. A journey to the roof led to me going up into the bell house that overhangs the road below - its very high and very unstable, proven by the amount of movement when I was on it. Most of its fastenings to the building including the gangway leading to it are rotten. Most of the building looks like something you'd expect in a zombie apocalypse.

By the time I got home after the trip it was around 6am, late night for sure! But well worth it, certainly not as sketchy as my first trip there, the long way into the auditorium is very dodgy.

There's something about Mendips....

So another weekend just gone by in the wonderful land of Mendipshire, leaving late afternoon Friday as per usual, descending on Priddy in the evening around 9pm. The group consisted of Olivia, Aidan, Adam, myself and Mike who made his own way there. We were staying at the Wessex Caving Club hut this time, much less of the party hut that the belfry is but at least you can (usually!) get a good nights sleep.

Friday evening was a good relax, a few beers and a fair bit of food (I spent £20 on munch en-route to the hut to last me the weekend) and we met a few interesting people and decided on our cave for the saturday.

Friday night we'd decided to go for G.B. Cave, but decided that before that we'd do some SRT practice on the training tower outside (was a little excited as i'd just bought a kit). So Saturday morning found us up with Tea in hand staring out of the window watching some other SRT users freezing their nick nacks off on the tower, because of this we suited up into furries and boots before Mike and I whacked on our SRT kits and went out to give it a go. My kit was missing a mallion and a few little bits of rope, a bit unorthodox to start with considering it uses a climbing harness instead of a caving harness but a few krabs and some prusik later and it was good to go (although a little dodgy). We got Liv, Adam and Aidan all on the tower too which made the morning despite being slow - rather productive.

Eventually we left for G.B. cave, approximately 7pm we'd parked up and entered the cave, a little later than expected due to parking at Charterhouse Farm and having a bit of a bimble trying to find the cave entrance in the dark, none of us had any useful sense of direction by this point, I still think there's too much space to get lost in above ground! I decided to drag everyone through the Devil's Elbow route, just after the cave entrance up a nice dodgy looking (and not very well fixed) ladder, it carries on through a variety of puddles, squeezes chambers and the odd drop down, ending in a 3m overhung downclimb into a small chamber which was then walkable (through a wet streamway) into the Gorge (a large chamber). A quick run up the muddy slope to the top of the chamber revealed the landslide that had previously collapsed the roof and the remains of a car that had been part of the infill. Some mud was thrown (AT MY FACE, MIKE!) and then we went down through the chamber, into Main Chamber (the biggest underground void on Mendip) and down the waterfall to the base of Ladder Dig extension.

From here, Mike rigged the ladder after a sketchy chain climb and we all climbed our way up to the passage, this followed for a fair while, encompassing broken-through false floors, lots of crawling, a few pretty chunks of stal and our route ended with me going through an awkward squeeze through a relatively deep muddy puddle, then turning back as we were running out of time. Mike decided it'd be funny to throw all the water I'd previously bailed out of the puddle back into it, making it rather unpleasant on the return (especialluy since some rebellious rock decided it'd jam beneath my sternum and pin me to the roof). Back through the crawly crawlies and back out above ladder dig Mike belayed everyone down before I belayed him down, de-rigged the ladder and abseiled to the floor of main chamber. Back up the waterfall, into the Grotto where we entered via Devil's elbow and then I led everyone back out the easier route (wasn't keen on making everyone do the Devil's Elbow in reverse). Outside the cave was freezing! Back at the car some of us stayed in furries to keep warm until back at the wessex but I decided to get change, stood in my boxers on top of my bonnet to avoid the crazy amount of mud (not a good sight, epecially for Mike in the passenger seat).

The drive back was all going smoothly until about half a km from the Wessex the biggest badger I've seen in my life decided to waddle out into the road from the passanger side and straight under my drivers side wheel, a small drive away from the scene (I hate badgers) I got out of the car to check for damage, not too bad but also no badger to be seen eek! I jumped back into the car and we made it back to the hut with about 10 minutes to spare on our 11pm call-out time, PHEW!

Saturday night we were all pretty tired, Adam had an early night after a rather long discussion involving knots and I ended up sat with a group of Cave Diving Group (CDG) members that Mike was talking to. I couldn't help but overhear the morbidity of their conversations, something along the lines of near-death experiences and every now and again the odd corpse they have to go past while diving. Being highly interested in the prospect of Cave Diving, Mike and I were used to similar stories but its still slightly un-nerving hearing it from them, certainly still interested though! The rest of the evening was spent mainly discussing sump diving, pony bottles and various caves for the Saturday. One man we were chatting to had a remarkable amount of diving gear for sale, along with a compressor, Paragliding set up and Kawasaki Ninja 750cc motorbike, he had frequented sumps using just a pony and reg so a fair while was spent in general chit chat, ended up staying awake till about 4am!

Sunday was a pretty lazy day, we all got up at 12 ish (except Adam who'd been awake for ages!) and we didn't go caving until about 4. I drove Liv, Adam and myself while Mike took his motorbike with Aidan pillion, my car decided it wanted to ground out continuously up the dirt track to the caves! Before getting dressed for caving we spent an hour or so checking out cave entrances in the Burrington area, namely Bath Swallet, Rod's Pot, Bos Swallet, Drunkards Hole and Read's Cavern (which took ages to find). As Reads was too far from the car and it was freezing cold by 4pm, we decided to go for Rod's Pot, a small cave with lots of crawling and lots of holes to fall down too. The route was pretty basic ending in a 4m (ish) drop into a chamber with nothing more to go through. The chamber was free-climbable down, however getting out seemed to us like it'd be much harder so I rigged a handline just in case. The return trip was the exact reverse of the in-trip and after waiting for everyone to exit the chamber and Mike and I stuffing the rope into the drag bag, we left for a stomp on for the exit. Not long was spent in this cave, 2/2.5 hours at most.

We returned to the hut for a few hours of warming up, a shower and some kit juggling before setting off back to Plymouth, my car had frozen over when I went to leave so I felt sorry for Mike biking back to Plymouth on his own while we all sat in my car with the heating on (thats a lie, sucker!). As I always get sleepy driving back, most of the journey was spent listening to Aqua on full blast and occasionally Adam and I singing along (Dr. Jones anyone?).

After a fair few weekends of caving without a clean my car isnt in the best of states....

Oil light keeps coming on too, but I cba to buy any so rebooting it does the trick. ;-)

Let go, let go, jump in.....

So, I've finally just realised how relaxing the majority of Imogen Heap's music is and how easy it is to work to.... I see a higher rate of uni work productivity! Maybe....

On another note, productive day it would seem, too many emails have been sent! Planning my Dissertation and writing my project proposal.... something along the lines of "What effects do Meteorological conditions have on the inter-annual outflow of the Tamar Estuary and what effect does this have on the freshwater plume into and beyond Plymouth Sound?". 

 Did a bit of climbing this afternoon, not much - managed a few routes I couldn't before, progress!

Mendips Caving tomorrow! I'll remember my camera this time...

It's been a while..... Xmas, New Years & Mendip madness!

Well Christmas went as Christmas does, family things and alcohol followed by slouching on the sofa watching TV like a plump chicken. No arguments this time! Woop! Was supposed to be travelling out to Luxembourg for a road trip with a good mate on Boxing Day but uni work got the better of me and it would never have got done (although it still isnt finished!).

Worked for a few days before new years but made up for it with a party at something of a mansion on dartmoor including a pool and then a house party and yummy meal in pensilva before having everyone gang up on me in a pretty nasty game of ring of fire! New years day I spent most of the day being hungover and subsequently getting drunk with dad.

The week following included work, uni work and an interesting house party at another house in pensilva, then an interview on the friday morning for my American Summer Camp councellor application. It went very very well! I'd rearranged the interview six times previously so I wasnt expecting a good response to be honest! I'll know within two weeks of the definate result and my dates when I'll be starting, will also need to go to the US Embassy in London for a face-to-face chat to get my J1 Visa which is a bit of a pain.

Literally an hour or so after my interview myself and Thom were headed up to Bridgwater to pick Mike up for our weekend in the Mendip hills staying in the Belfry again with EUSS. Unfortunately I forgot my camera this time so priceless photos weren't taken this time, but got another weekend in the Mendips on Friday so will try and make up for it! The weekend was nonetheless epic with us doing two caves and one mine across the two days, and plenty of drinking and games at the hut!

We arrived at about 7 and pretty much went straight to the pub (Hunter's Lodge Inn), where a few ciders and games were played before coming back and revealing to EUSS the AWESOME A&E Squeezebox. A few hours were spent on that one with Mike beating me on the side squeeze but im still first on the top squeeze!

Saturday it was decided that Singing River Mine would be the place to go so after trying to subdue our hangovers with oatmeal and lazing around we made our way to Shipham to find the entrance shaft (which is in someones back garden), Mike found it for us and we rigged it with our 10m ladder from the rather dodgy looking static ladder and a lifeline from a just as dodgy tree. I went down first and after getting to the bottom it emerged out ladder was 2-3m too short, a bit of a jump down and all was well and Mike and Thom followed. The mine turned out to be like some sort of badger set with every passage leading to everywhere! At the bottom there was some beautifully clear water forming a few lakes, one of which in the middle concealed a flooded shaft making it quite nicely deep enough for a swim. Thom and I had previously gone from the neighbouring lake through a duck and under a dodgy looking plank to enter the lake room so it was Mikes turn to man up, which he did quite well, decided to go for a cheeky swim over the submerged shaft on the way across. The room then led to numerous other passages which we proceeded to explore including a tunnel which Mike found, it included a portion of its floor that had collapsed into the tunnel below, however it was flooded beyond roof level into the above tunnel so was impossible for us to check out. =[ We got a bit lost on our way out but after some swimming and bimbling we eventually found our way, Mike SRT'd up to the top first and then belayed Thom and myself up. After some very cold changing in the centre of Shipham (luckily it was dark) we went back to the belfry.

The Saturday night included some very heavy drinking, particularly on my part but not entirely by choice, exeter decided to bugger me over at a game of Touch Cup to the point id had two bottles of skanky wine theyd been making me drink every time I lost including my own beer which somehow was a "forfeit" too. Mike threw a load of skittles in his cider bottle causing it to shoot foam at him as he ran to the kitchen looking suprised and Thom was busy doing the Uni work I SHOULD have been doing which I now regret not doing! Later in the evening some random game involving two bottles and some awkward balance was played, until everyone got sick of the strobe lights and decided to go to bed!

The next morning we chose Pierres Pot as our chosen cave followed by Sidcot Swallet, Pierres was really interesting with quite a lot of interconnecting passages, steep rifts to both climb and descend and some little pots to jump down, it wasn't really a wet cave but it had a lot of tight squeezes, most of which we manned up for but one particular rift we left alone as we had no rope. It was incredibly steep descending for as far as my light could let me see, it had a bolt at the top so it was obvious a rope was reccomended at least for ascending as it would certainly have been one hell of a struggle getting back, being nearly a vertical drop, and being only about 20cm wide (as a back to front dimension, room for shoulder width was plenty).

After leaving Pierres Pot we went to Sidcot where I encountered a minor problem, my fear of spiders - not a problem for the other two it seemed. Thom went in first and quickly discovered that there were some pretty big spiders hiding in the entrance halls, shafts and chambers, and quite a lot of them. I was second and had to go through a bit of manning up before proceeding, I'm usually not too bad but being in a confined space with them only a few inches from my face is pushing it! After the entrance there didnt seem to be any more so on we went to perhaps the most interesting bit of the cave we went to - Lobster Pot, so-called as getting in is easy, a very small slot in the floor with a fun little slide into a small chamber, just let gravity work its magic. On the way out however, it can be rather awkward. Thom was first in and last out, we all managed to get out suprisingly easier than we thought after looking at it. Overall the cave was nice and squeezy, with some of the passages we gandered to choking quite quickly, and me dreading the spider infested entrance we eventually had to go through on exit!