Dates: 28th August 2021
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| Passage in Little Neath River Cave. Photo by Tomasz Zalewski. |
So the 28th August 2021 was a big day for SWCC, it was the 75th anniversary celebrations. With many friends meeting for the first time in probably over a year there was much caving to be done before the hog roast and Brian’s shiny cock award...
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| Brian's long service award, conceived by the late Chris Grimmett. Photo by Graham Christian. |
Whilst many ventured into OFD a few of us took advantage of the dry period and hot weather to enter Little Neath River Cave lead by the dream team Clive Westlake and David Mullin!
The cave is about 30 minutes drive away from Penwyllt and you can park off the track near a bridge as shown on streetmap. You need to pay a good will fee of £1/pp at the Blaen Nedd Isaf Farm just up the road. You can download and print off a cave survey found on the UBSS website here.
The entrance is at the base of the cliff just before the bend in the river upstream of the bridge. It leads immediately into a hands and knees crawl in a key-hole shaped passage. With the river flowing directly into the crawling entrance you are instantly soaked and at one point up to your neck in it!
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| Claire enjoying a refreshing dip! |
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| Thumbs up from Tomasz! |
Now I would say this entrance would be very cold and miserable in winter but today the water was warmed by the sunshine and it was very pleasant indeed, a first for me for UK caving.
Thankfully the crawling passageway soon bursts out into a large stomping passage. With Clive sounding out passage names we eventually arrived at the canal, a very low section that is a floating/crawl for some distance. I would suspect this sumps in high flow. After the canal we entered Bouncing boulder hall where Clive took his rather impressive photo using old school flash bulbs!
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| Bouncing boulder hall. Photo by Clive Westlake. |
We then carried on to Sump 2, the end for non-divers. The passages generally remain fairly large until the sump.
We returned to the entrance via the canal by-pass and took the opportunity to photo a wonderful set of stals.
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| Clive preparing his shot. Photo by Tomasz. |
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| Claire at the stals in canal by-pass. Photo by Clive Westlake. |
The crawl out of the entrance would be very challenging in high flow as you have the full force of the stream against you, but today it was easy, warm and not too many spiders...
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| Clive exiting the cave. |
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| David resting on the cobbled side bar opposite the entrance, river Nedd Fechan. |
I had not been in this cave system for probably over 5 years and had forgotten that after suffering the wet gnarly entrance you are rewarded with some impressively large passages. A great trip for summer.
We made it back in time for the Hog roast and plenty of beer drinking!
