Wednesday 13th June - Eastwater Cave BDCC

It had been a long while since I'd been proper caving with the Bristol lot. After hurting my back I'd been taking a break for a little while, then hadn't been able to get a babysitter for the last few trips. Finally all plans fell into place and Steve B and I were off to the Mendips post work to go caving..

Now I've only ever heard bad things about Eastwater cave. Fellow cavers have told me about horrible moments they've had in there, my Dad has told me back in his caving days the whole place had a bad feeling about it, Mendip Underground the cave guide book even went as far to mention how loose the boulder choke is in the main entrance. Reading trip reports online did not help quell my bad thoughts about it (if anything it made them worse, full of tales of arduous trips!) The only thing which did ease my mind somewhat was the lovely friendly landowner - you pay a fee of £1 to cross the land and are allowed to park near the cave for the fee and change in her barn. She made us feel very welcome which was really nice.

On approaching the cave there was a man with a gun (not a good start!!) he'd set up a shelter and was clearly out to shoot some wildlife (a dead wood pigeon was on the path) this did not feel like good start to the trip! He bade us good evening and stood about rather shiftily (that could have been my imagination though..)

Pre Eastwater smiles - how those faces would change..



We started off down through the dodgy as hell looking boulder choke - Dave speeding off with me moaning about how unsafe it all looked (almost to the point of turning on my heels and heading out!) Dave did say that it got better, which reassured me somewhat. Through the boulders we followed a rope which guided us through a safest route - the safest route really did not look that safe. I did not want anyone climbing above me or near me so I waited for people to clear through before I would progress.





Once through we headed to the Upper Traverse - I've heard bad tales of this. It basically a slope with a low roof above you.  I think the approach is to lie on your back and sort of crab along until you reach the exit point. It narrows further down so you don't want to fall down and get stuck as there's a bit of a drop and it doesn't look nice down there. Dave went first, I looked at it as he progressed and in Dave's words I was on the point of mutiny at that stage, prepared to take my chances of exiting the cave alone and watching the all together more pleasant sunset instead. Not long after that Dave got stuck - I'm not too sure what was going on as I couldn't see fully down, but I think he got his helmet stuck trying to get through the eye hole squeeze at the end. Dave gave up and made very quick progress back to us and it was off to elsewhere in the cave to look at a different route on...

We tried another route on which involved getting into a small place and pushing up through a squeeze. Scott and Steve got up through it (Scott being the tallest member of the party a 6ft 4) but Dave had to give up as he'd lost his confidence in the traverse epic and couldn't get the right approach through the tightest bit. This wasn't the way on anyway, it was just a way of looking at the upper traverse we were told afterwards. Why the hell did we go up there then I muttered feeling less confident about getting back down it. Luckily all went well and it was onwards to the actual way on. The infamous 'woggle press' so called that because a boy Scout was crushed by a falling rock in the 60's - nice... No wonder the place has a weird atmosphere to it.
Despite it's name the press was a doddle for me (being of the smaller frame) and not overly bad for the others. We had a look at Dolphin Chimney/pot (one for another day) and some other sections of the cave. We looked at a bit called the Twin Verticals which was a pretty awe dropping drop. Mendip caves often feel quite constricted so it was nice to see something with some impressive depth to it. I looked down the drop without getting wobbly legs too.



Somewhere in amongst all that we looked at another pot hole which pretty calcite around it & also did somewhat less scary traverse which was good practise for the real thing to be done on another occasion.







We went out back the way we came - coming over a feature called the Canyon I enjoyed going low in the bottom of it (why go high when you can go low!) whilst the others traversed over the top.

Not sure what this big rifty chamber was called


We climbed high to have a nose to the back of it, it just kept going higher and higher so we came back eventually



The woggle press was easy on the reverse but Dave and Scott didn't have such a good time of it - Scott in particular. The other two had already started to head out whilst Scott was still trying to get out of it. I waited out of eye shot, but I think poor Scott felt he'd been abandoned. Poor Dave was pretty wiped out by the trip (Too much drinking the previous weekend with caver Ivan whilst exploring welsh caves I reckon!) We retired to the Hunters Lodge Inn for Chilli and cheese rolls. What better place to be post caving - cheap food till closing time and scrumpy cider, heaven on EARTH.

This Wednesday coming we are going to a somewhat prettier cave in Fairy quarry - I am hoping I will get time to have a mess round with my camera and get it on better settings for taking photos underground as I had it all wrong on this last trip (not used it underground before)

Have a pretty picture of one of the caves in Fairy Quarry to make up for the grimness of Eastwater!