Fairy Cave Quarry Wed 20th June - caving in Hilliers

Fairy Quarry was the first trip I did with Dave - must have been a few years back now. I've only had the chance to return to the quarry once since, and that was to go on a leader trip to visit one of the other really pretty caves in the quarry. I was keen to have a go at the navigation of the cave so I could potentially lead a trip there on a future occasion.

I wasn't too sure if the trip was happening or not as hadn't heard from Dave on the day of the trip with the meet up time. Starting to panic slightly I sent and email round and thankfully got a reply from Dave that the trip was on and it was just myself, Him, Scott and Steve B coming. Getting there went without too much of a hitch - aside from initially missing the hidden gate on the road. It was lucky nothing had gone wrong as we didn't have any phone signal & Dave rarely has his phone on anyway!

The gate for the carpark is locked with the CSCC key (a universal key with clubs hold which can open a series of caves across the Mendips). Dave chatted to some climbers who I think were a bit annoyed they weren't aloud to have a key for the carpark. Politics over and done with we quickly got changed then had the next challenge of getting the quarry gate open (it is padlocked with a lock which needs a code to open it with) -  this was an arrangement which was put in place by the management committee and owners as they were having issues with people misusing the quarry. Once in, the cave entrance was the nearest to our entrance point, it again unlocked without hitch, and I offered to test the bolt on the door  - which worked fine. It was me first - down a bit of a drop which has a rigged handline. Being small I didn't fancy wedging in so did a bit of an awkward climb to get to the bottom. Then we took a right turn to pass into a grovelly gravelly crawl to get into the system. Last time I went in this cave I remember commenting on how much I liked the smell of it - it still had the damp gravel smell but not quite as pungent from the last time we were there.

There were broken formations littering the floor in the initial passages - I'm presuming this was down to quarry blasting (the quarry is no longer a working quarry). There were also some rather dodgy looking rockfalls on the floor - I don't think any of them were recent, but it was a little unsettling, especially the 'boulder of doom' which looked like it was wedged waiting to fall.

Navigation wise the cave isn't difficult - it is mostly linear. There are smaller holes which you could probably go off and investigate but the way on is mostly in a straight on direction. We reached a section which was covered in tar which had dripped down from the quarry- I remembered this from my first trip into the cave.

I'd brought my camera on the trip but had ommitted to charge the battery, so was gutted I couldn't take any photos. We reached the section where we had to pass through some awkward squeezes - Dave opted to go first through these, then Scott so Steve and I could be the rescue party in the event they got stuck. The first one went without hitch, the second tight bit was a bit trickier and I was quite worried watching Dave, then Scott pass through the horrible looking hole. Once in it, it wasn't as bad as it looked but I was very glad to be small at that point, and thought the chaps were very brave pushing on through! I guided Steve through the squeezes offering helpful/not so helpful hints and we arrived in some really pretty passage. I can't recall which formations were in which section of the cave at this point, but there was a huge impressive curtain at one point and lots of columns and stals. The passage had a fair amount of water in it - going over the top of our wellys. We didn't make it as far as the redroom - we did another boulder choke, but headed out after that as time was ticking on and Dave wanted to save the redroom for another time (a section of the cave decorated with unusually red formations)

Our route back through the squeezes went without hitch - aside from me trying to descend down an impossibly small hole which wasn't the way on much to everyones amusement!, and I took over camera duties on the way out of the cave - Steve and Dave had good white light coming off their torches (rather than the crappy blue of my Duo) so I bossed them about getting them to light different things. Although the Olympus tough camera Dave has is pretty low spec it actually responded quite well when time was taken to put quite allot of light onto things. The good thing about Dave's camera is it's waterproof,can be dropped and is designed to get wet and muddy. If only someone could improve the spec of it I'd be rushing out and buying one myself. I am thinking of trying to get a second hand one to use on wetter trips though - I've just bought a torch on Ebay to light photos so hopefully I should be able to return and get some really nice photos.I think I'm starting to get my caving confidence back up again. Luckily next weeks trip is a wet one so I should be able to remove the thick layer of mud which has settled on my kit - the joys of quarry slurry!

Dave's shots












Some of my shots
















Pub!


Full set of photos