50 and caving!

Team: Duncan Hornby & Claire Vivian

Trip date: 4/5/21 & 6/5/21

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So... I've finally reached the big 5 'O! Tradition dictates getting friends, family and all my caving chums together for a big party.

Unfortunately for me, COVID stomped on that idea and although lockdown restrictions have eased up, there is no way I would be allowed to party with my friends... 😟

Thankfully Claire came to the rescue, saved me from a lonely birthday and dragged me underground (to be fair I didn't need much persuasion). Over 2 days last week we visited 3 caves on the Mendips.

So by way of kick starting the SWCC blog for 2021 I invite you to join me in my some what scaled down 50th birthday caving trips!

Fairy Cave

We parked at the Cerberus hut, got very lucky and bumped into a member staying there who informed us the code to the padlock had changed. Armed with the new code we headed off to Fairy Quarry to do the Fairy Cave to Hillier's through trip, a trip that Claire has never done.

My birthday cake at the entrance of Fairy Cave.

Keen to keep reminding myself it was my 50th birthday trip I kept the candles...

You try getting through that squeeze with candles!

We made our way to the connection to Hillier's, the flat out crawl in a puddle, which seemed like an obvious place to celebrate...

Yes, I have lost the plot...

So it was now time to sing happy birthday! Click on the video below to join in.

With my birthday candles finally giving up we entered Hillier's, and headed to the pretty Cambridge Grotto.

Cambridge Grotto formations.

Cambridge Grotto formations.

Claire back lighting a curtain.

Running out of time we quickly headed out passing through Tar Hall and the spider infested entrance to exit into late afternoon May sunshine.

Bath Swallet to Rod's Pot

2 Days later we returned to the Mendips to do the through trip. This is a short trip but with lots of variety. The entrance of Bath Swallet can be found in the first obvious depression on your left after the end of the track.

Claire and I at the entrance of Bath Swallet.

After a short scramble and crawl you get to the top of Shower Pot. This is a nice pitch, good for beginners, although the start of it is a bit awkward. There are several P-bolts and naturals to rig off at the pitch head and a 25m rope is more than enough. Having descended the pitch we leave the rope but take our harnesses.

Descending Shower Pot.

At the bottom of Shower Pot (with the pitch behind you), turn left and head down the obvious hole in the floor. Some crawling then you pop out at the bottom of Purple Pot. There thankfully is a handline in situ as purple pot is a bit slippery.

Claire climbing out of the top of Purple Pot.

You eventually pop out into Main Chamber in Rod's Pot and then it is a steep route finding ascent out of the cave. On the way back to the car I popped back into Bath Swallet and retrieved my rope.

Swildons Upper Series

With the through trip completed we headed over to Swildons Hole. We decided to keep this trip shorter and rather than blast our way down to sump 1 and back we were to explore the upper series and tick off as many circular routes that can be done.

Claire and I at the entrance of Swildons.

We are both familiar with the short dry way in so we attempted the long way in and ended up in a reasonable well decorated chamber before connecting with the main stream.

A chamber in the upper series of Swildons.

We then headed back out along the wet way out, which by its name implies you get quite wet! A word of caution there is a fairly tight squeeze along this route near the exit, large people will find that very difficult.

Although this trip was short it was really useful to link up sections of the cave and now provides alternate routes in/out.

So I hope you enjoyed my birthday caving and it will be great to read about others caving as more people get back underground?

More trips than you can shake a stick at!

Team: Andrew McLeod, Bob Hall, Duncan Hornby, Helen Stewart, Jo White, Malcolm Stewart, Mason Davis, Morgan Specht,Trevor Rogers, Richard Sore, Tarquin Wilton-Jones


Date 18th November - 19th November

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A few of us arrived at the Shepton on Friday, unusually most of the team turned up on the Saturday morning. Claire [trip secretary] had done her magic and arranged multiple trips and even managed to get leaders for both Upper Flood and St Cuthberts. The people interested in SRT had planned to tackle Thrupe Lane Swallet but heavy rain came in earlier than expected so plan “B” was Rhino rift.

One downside of this weekend was 11 people turned up to cave but only 5 stayed the full weekend, with the others scattering after their trips. So those 6 missed out on drunken shenanigans and having embarrassing photos immortalised on the internet… :)


Saturday

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The 11 strong team split into 3 groups and below are their individual trip reports.


Rhino Rift - Duncan


Arriving at the spot where one parks up we changed and duly walked off in the wrong direction. Fortunately another caver pointed us in the correct direction and with the GPS we found the entrance of Rhino rift!

Duncan, Morgan and Bob at the entrance of Rhino

Having warned Helen that the St Cuthbert's entrance was a bit of a challenge getting out she warned us that the right hand route, a route using spits, was impossible to find and follow.

Morgan was keen to lead and build upon his existing rigging experience. At the top of the first pitch he found the first spit started out and then could find no more! So he had to de-rig and follow the p-bolts on the left hand wall. Helen was right… humph…..

Morgan abandoning the right-hand side of the first pitch as the spits mysteriously disappeared! You can see the p-bolts on the left wall.

As with many SRT trips it is a lonely pursuit with each of us keeping a safe distance. We eventually congregated at the top of the third and final pitch. An exposed traverse out to a Y-hang. The ropes had been packed in order for the right hand route so Morgan ran out of rope on the final pitch and had to set up a mid-rope knot pass. Bob passed this and then it was my turn. I was at the Y-hang on the final 20m. I could see the mid-rope knot. In all the years of caving I had never actually done a mid-rope knot pass and although I should have enough skills to “work it out” I did not feel confident and felt hanging around 20m above the ground was not the time or place to “have a go”. So I bailed out on the final bit and did not join the others at the bottom of the cave. So I (Duncan) have damn good reason to improve my SRT skills and visit Rhino again!

Bob descending the third and final pitch.

The ascent out was trouble free and we exited the cave into miserable cold and wet weather.

St.Cuthbert’s Swallet - Helen

Malcolm and I (Helen) travelled up from Cardiff on the Saturday morning arriving at the Shepton Mallet hut to find out that our original plan – Thrupe Lane Swallet - was cancelled due to heavy rain forecasted later that day. So we hopped onto the St Cuthbert’s Swallet guided trip with Richard, Mason and Trevor, thinking this would be a nice, easy option... Duncan’s passing comment as we left the hut was “great trip! But the entrance series is a beast…” humph…..

Mason and Trevor at the Belfry

We walked across to the BEC (just a few meters away) to be met by the smell of a huge fry up and a tonne of excited “new to caving” students from Nottingham about to be initiated by Swildons. Our guide for the day Estelle arrived with James, who was going to lead us as part of his training to become a leader. Our plan was to do one of the many round trips.

We walked to the manhole entrance which is in the scruffy ground only a few meters away from the Belfry. One by one we slid down the drainpipe and the following tight rift, which is part of the entrance series. Estelle warned us to save some energy for the rift on the way out. We carried on down through the entrance series via Wire Rift and fixed ladders.

Richard at the Railway Tunnel Curtain

Once on the main part of the round trip we negotiated a number of obstacles and mini challenges. There was plenty of fine stal such as the famous “Fingers” and fine curtains.

We noted the big slabs of rock of Everest and K2 and turned around at Gour Hall short of the downstream sump.

Mason nearly at the top of Everest

On the way back up the cave we visited passages such Plantation Passage and Harem Passage, remembered by two Madonna like breasts…the Railway Tunnel, a bold step in the Rabbit Warren, the Cascade and the Water Chute.

Malcolm at the Water Chute near Arete

The exit, although quick was in my opinion jolly hard work. We each took it in turns to head up the rift and when it was my turn I huffed, heaved and panted, bruising my knees and elbows, blaming my lack of upper body strength. Little sounds of encouragement by Richard at the top of rift finally ensured I was up and out.

Out to a damp, dank day, but duly rewarded by a welcome pint in the Hunters. Many thanks to Estelle and James our guides for the day.

Up and out… Malcolm, Richard, Trevor, James, Estelle and Helen

Saturday evening Richard, Tarquin, Duncan, Jo and Andrew headed over to the Queen Vic for some pub grub and Liz dropped in to say hello and update us on her chickens.

Back at the Shepton, Wealden members had arrived to bolster numbers; the evening passed with drinks and challenges set by Tarquin to get through that damn table!

Upper Flood- Jo

On Saturday morning Tarquin, Andrew and I met our guides Richard and Andy at the MCG hut. Usually there is only one leader but there were some ladders that needed checking so we had one extra. Once changed we headed to the cave, which soon diminishes to a mixture of hands and knees crawling and stooping, interspersed with the occasional damp bit (I was glad I’d brought my wetsuit!). This is soon followed by the boulder choke and then the canal (more wet crawling).

After this the streamway is followed for a while (with only occasional wet crawling) until Neverland is reached. The journey up to here took around 2 hours and was very pretty with lots of interesting features to look at along the way (despite it not being the 'pretty' bit)

Not the pretty bit…

Once you reach Neverland you have to take your oversuits off and wash your wellies to protect the formations. The passage up to the pork pie formations is covered from top to bottom in calcite is very stunning. Those in furry suits were feeling the chill so there wasn't chance to get many photos on this trip.

Morgan admiring the ‘Pork Pie’ formations with Richard supervising.

Next we headed to check the in situ ladders to see how they were faring. The first ladder was looking a bit worse for wear and plans were being made for its replacement. The second was faring much better. The formations in this section of cave, which I understand is rarely visited, were absolutely stunning and must be very old.

It was then time to make the return journey back out of the cave (back to wet crawling...) By the time we were nearing the exit my knees were feeling very sore, despite 3 layers of Neoprene! I was glad to finally reach the end by which time I was looking forward to a shower and a good pub meal.

The trip took us about 6 hours, much of which was wet crawling (in case I hadn't mentioned), but the formations we saw were amazing. Upper Flood is one of the most (if not the most) well decorated cave I've been in and was well worth the aches the following morning!

Thanks to our leaders Richard and Andy for a brilliant trip into a stunning cave.

Neverland

Sunday

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The remaining people split into two groups: Tarquin hooking up with Wealden club members to visit Fairy Quarry, the rest visiting GB cave.


GB Cave - Duncan


Sunday was a lazy start with Jo and Andrew rolling up at 11am. Whilst Jo and I have visited GB Cave before Andrew had not and with none of us desperate for a mega trip we opted for a short round trip in GB.

After picking up the key at the BEC, we headed over to Charterhouse area and parked up in the official parking spot. Changed, we stomped over to the cave entrance bathed in sunshine.

Duncan, Jo and Andrew wondering why they are going underground on such a gloriously sunny day!

Andrew took the lead and navigated the system with little intervention from me. Jo and I took several photos and below are a couple of the ones that came out.

We bumped into Clive Westlake and his team who were enjoying the system and I think getting roped into some photography… ;)

Jo and Andrew in the White Passage.

The round trip requires us to do an easy but exposed climb up the right hand side of the waterfall. Under these low flow conditions you just get a quick soaking as you cross over at the top of the waterfall. Under high flow conditions, probably not so easy [or smart]...

Climbing the waterfall allows for a round trip.

2½ hours later and we were out! Back at the hut, a quick cuppa then the inevitable soul sucking travel home.

Fairy Quarry - Tarquin

The caves in Fairy Cave Quarry have a special place in British caving history; some of the best decorated caves in Britain, found by quarrying, then progressively destroyed by the quarrying, with the quarry master torn between protecting the caves, and maintaining the quarry's output. (See the film A Rock and a Hard Place for more on that
story.) But while taking away, the quarry also exposed further caves, including ones with even better decorations. And so far, a set of caves on my wishlist that I had never visited, despite a long history of Mendip caving.

It wasn't on the SWCC plan, but there were not enough SRTers of us left on the Sunday for a Rhino Rift bag retrieval trip, and I was offered the chance to join another club's led trip to Fairy Cave Quarry. Scheduling restrictions meant the trip could not start until midday, which left little time for caving, with us all needing to get away before evening. The main destination was Shatter Cave, one of the finest in the quarry. A photographic trip would take forever here, as there is simply so much to attract the camera, so we intentionally left them behind.

After a fight with the padlocks, we gained access to the cave and its collection of cave spiders and peppered moths. The early passage is full of recent breakdown, caused by the quarry works. Remnants of stal were scattered everywhere, with deep scratches on the flowstone caused by the falling rocks. The blasting damage abruptly ended, and the formations returned in their glory, chamber after chamber of stunning decorations, more like a conceptual painting than a real cave. The most memorable sets are Tor Hall, with its helictites, curtains, and a large stalagmite boss reminiscent of Glastonbury Tor, and the Leaning Tower of Piza, a leaning stalagmite surrounded by helictites.

An awkward squeeze then brought us to a final chamber, with ludicrously large crystals growing from a dried crystal pool, and immaculate calcite pillars. At this point, a short loop returned us to the Leaning Tower. A chance sighting of a rather special formation mandated the use of a camera, so I left the party and sped (carefully - the cave is precious) back to the gate. Several minutes fighting with the padlock, I returned to the car, collected my phone, and sped back to the cave. Returning through the system, I reached the formation and took out the phone, snapped my pictures, and hurried back to the others, who had just reached the old gate part way into the cave.

We were hoping to visit W/L cave as well, but the padlocks were determined not to open. Despite several attempts by a few of the team members, proper use of the keys (which is rather more difficult than might be expected) resulted in the padlocks remaining firmly shut. They won this fight.

We resorted to exploring some of the remaining fragments of Balch cave, whose interconnecting decorated chambers were lost to the quarry.
Avoiding the fragments that are used by greater horseshoe bats, there were still enough hints to show what the formations would have been like in the chambers, but without much left to actually admire. Several parts had obvious tar infiltration from the quarry, and odd dry rot branches sprawling through the cave. The greater horseshoes, which hang together in clusters with their wings only partly covering them, apparently use certain parts of the cave, now it has been opened to the surface, but seem not to mind the tar pollution.

Then a visit to Hilliers (again, there are parts of the system used by the bats, and these parts are simply avoided, treated as "closed"). This was a complete contrast to Shatter. Dropping down below the quarry floor, we entered a flood-prone passage with a very clear mud tidemark above our heads. This led for a considerable distance to its junction with Fairy Cave. Beyond here, the passage became well decorated, sadly marred by the occasional piles of spent carbide, dumped liberally over the formations. Occasional crawls and chokes increased in frequency, until a squeeze spelled the start of the lengthy choke. This terminated in the Red Room, where red and orange stained stal gave the impression of standing inside a surgical procedure.

On our return, we paid a visit to the non-bat-colonised parts of Fairy Cave, passing through a duck (half way up your face when crawling through), with me trying to keep my poor phone dry in my hand. A few oddly placed signs (eg. "Straw stalactite") gave hints that this was once a show cave of sorts, though the crawls made it far less of a show cave than one might imagine. Tree roots spelled the start of the bat area, so our trip ended there, with a sight of the lesser horseshoe bats hanging on to the tree roots like clothes on a washing line.

3 caves, 4 trips. Stunning place, and definitely deserving of return visits. Thanks to our trip leader for showing us around, and my hosts for allowing me to join their trip.

Yeah cave is dry, by the way I've not been in it for 5 years...uh oh!

Team: Andy Freem, Antonia Freem and Duncan Hornby

It is a rare treat to be able to lead the Freems into a cave system they haven’t been in!

Meeting up on the Friday at the MCG hut, Mendips I found them huddled in front of the wood burner. With surprisingly little effort I managed to drag them away from the comfort of the fire for a customary pint at the Hunters!

Saturday

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Saturday was always going to be a short trip as Andy and Antonia had travelled to the Mendips primarily for a meeting at the Wessex CC about their involvement in supporting Eurospeleo.

I was to take them on the through trip of Fairy Cave to Hillier’s in Fairy Quarry. We parked at the Cerberus hut, changed then walked the 5 minutes to the quarry. A warning to those who have never visited the cave, the quarry is now fenced off and one needs to get a combination for the padlock on the gate to gain access. Fairy cave itself does not have a gate but Hillier’s does so the through trip can only be done in that direction if you do not have a key.

It had been cold that morning and we were surprised how warm the air felt as it poured out of the entrance, entering the cave felt positively tropical!

Andy and Antonia, doing a final equipment check before entering fairy cave

The beginning of the trip panned out as much as I had expected, not remembering any of it until I came across some squeeze for which I had a faint memory of.

Andy passing through the first flat-out squeeze in Fairy Cave

Andy in a chamber near the entrance

A water drop captured hitting a cave pearl

We stopped a few times to film and eventually came to a bouldery tube down to a duck. I don’t remember this! A flat out crawl into a pool with a few inches of air space, Andy surveyed it and was concerned that there was not enough space to maneuver as further on the ceiling forced you into even less air space. With valid concerns and recovering from a bad back he decided to go no further. New plans were hatched, Antonia and I were to continue and complete the through trip with minimal stopping, Andy was to navigate his way back out and find the entrance to Hillier’s and meet us there.

The duck was grim and I had to put half my face into the pool to get through; that turned out to be the easy bit, it was the tight squeeze immediately after that was “interesting”.

A lovely day to go for a dip!

With the duck and squeeze behind us we continued on with the trip doing the odd bit of filming. We eventually met the Hillier’s system at a T-junction which is an easy climb down. Heading left towards the exit the cave is noticeably more decorated with impressive flowstone formations. At some point along you pass through tar hall. Black shiny tar oozes out of the roof from past quarrying activities, like some grotesque alien life-form.

Tar oozing out of roof in Tar Hall chamber

After this is a section of passage with many broken formations caused by quarrying activities. Another flat out crawl, then you can finally stand with a climb up a slope to the exit.

Andy had been waiting patiently to greet us. It had obviously occurred to him that he could come through that entrance and we were keen to show him the rest of the cave. We headed back towards the T-junction filming various locations.

Andy and Antonia ensuring video camera lens is clean before filming

Once we got to the T-junction I said I had never actually gone right, I had always gone left to head out, so we went right! This turned to be a fantastic experience as the formations suddenly got even better with an explosion of coloured flowstone, crystal pools, straws, stalagmites and curtains, a Freem production filming wonderland!

Antonia and I pushed a contorting but easy to navigate choke, passing through a flowstone flat out crawl and with Antonia leading the way entered the section of the cave into what is known as Cambridge Grotto. This is very well decorated and we passed through to as far as Brenda’s Chamber. Andy had not followed through the choke, so after about 30 minutes of exploring we headed back to join up with Andy. At this point we headed out.

In the evening, we ate at the Victoria Inn at Priddy, then went to the Wessex for their meeting. I hung around in the common room chatting with others and then about 9pm the meeting finished and we all headed off to the Hunters.

Trip time: 5 hours

Sunday

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Plan “A” was to visit Pine Tree Pot, a cave near MCG which neither of us had visited. This was blown out by the fact no one staying at the MCG had access to the key cupboard. So rather frustrated we went to plan “B”, use a key we had picked up at the Wessex the night before and enter Hillier’s again with one of the Freem’s superior cameras to film some of the formations in higher quality.

We picked up two new MCG members who had been let down by other members and took them into Hillier’s. The cave is quite short so I took them as far as the T-junction into Fairy Cave, explained various options and left them to it. Andy and Antonia had made their way to just past tar hall and we began filming. We were working our way towards the pretties beyond the T-junction.

Antonia admiring a formation during filming

Filming took longer as the superior camera required setting up on a tripod, this gave me ample opportunity to use my stills camera for capturing various formations or scenes including bat poo! Yeah it gets very lonely on long filming trips…

Macro-mode still of fungus growing on bat poo!

With an almost celebrity like status Andy and Antonia were recognised by another group passing through the system. I on the other hand was not...

We eventually passed the T-junction into the next pretty section, filming the squeezes and formations. This time Andy joined us and passed through the choke into the flat out crawling section. At the end of this is another squeeze that turns into an awkward left-handed turn. Andy observed me passing through this and most wisely decided against continuing in case his back gave him trouble. Thus Antonia and I continued on, filming as much as we could do.

Close up of curtains in Cambridge Grotto

I realised just having 2 people meant that it was more difficult to set up scenes. A third person in a filming team definitely makes things easier and can act as a model for scale.

With time running out, regretfully Antonia and I had to give up and head back to the exit to ensure we did not overshoot our call out. There was plenty more to video…

Meeting up with Andy we shut the gate and headed back to Cerberus, just in time for it to start raining. Sitting in their camper van, scoffing pasties and chocolate, bruised and battered from the choke we were all very impressed with the many formations that Hillier’s had kept secret.

Trip time: 5 hours

Curtains in Cambridge Grotto

Beyond Cambridge Grotto, Antonia pauses to admire the formations she had just filmed

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Now you have read the blog you can watch the movie!

Mendip Caving, 17-18 Oct. 2015

SWCC: Bill Buxton, Chloe Francis, Laurence Brown and Claire Vivian

MCG: Ben Cooper

For a change, I'll start at the end. The moral of the story is that if you haven't been to Upper Flood Swallet, you should go. But it all began because we'd been lax and hadn't visited the Mendips to go caving for a number of months as no caving was managed on the Hidden Earth weekend.

For those who haven't been there yet, the Mendips are a great place to go caving. There are loads of caves to explore. Some are shorter ones, where you can do several in a day and others are bigger systems such as Swildon's Hole, St. Cuthbert's Swallet, Charterhouse and Upper Flood where you can while a day away and only see a small section of the whole. When coupled with an excellent social scene with a mix of cavers from many different Mendip clubs mingling together, frequently at the Hunter's Inn, it makes for a good location for a caving weekend.

We stayed at Larkshall, home of Cerberus Speleological Society; a first visit there for us. We shared this with Cardiff University who proved that university caving is still going extremely strong by fielding a group of around 35 for a Fresher's caving weekend. The strong support network provided by the Cardiff alumni team was also readily apparent as were the high spirits of the new cavers who had some first visits to Swildon's, GB and Fairy Cave Quarry and came back very excited by their new experiences. They also learned some new caving games, including the broom handle one and paper picking up game and upheld some old traditions - one of their members has a cream pie in the face on every away trip (which is welcomed by everyone as all get a share of the dessert afterwards!).

Larkshall, home of the Cerberus.

Saturday was a bright and fairly early start. We had tried to have an early night to be ready for the trip but, as with most best laid plans, that hadn't happened. Nevertheless, we were up and ready in plenty of time to meet Ben at the MCG hut at 10am. The weather was looking good and it was not a long drive to get there. Having never approached the MCG from this side of the Mendips we decided to use Chloe's sat nav. When we passed the same cyclists and group of horses for the second time, there was some minor cause for concern expressed, but nothing more. When the sat nav suggested a decidedly dodgy looking track as being the quickest route there, fresh scepticism emerged. However, not enough to deter us from following the track and having to reverse around 1/2 mile back when it was discovered to be a dead end. Even after this we were only 5 mins late for our meeting, which was perfectly within the boundaries of acceptable cavers' 'faff time'.

Upper Flood is not a walk in the park. Those expecting to just head straight in and see the formations in Neverland without putting in too much effort will be sorely disappointed. The cave makes you work for it and guards it's spectacular formations well. The trip to Neverland and back takes around 5 hours at a fair pace and is a committing one. An injury beyond the choke would be an incredibly serious situation with, I'd say, zero chance of a stretcher being able to be taken back through the choke. There are 13 squeezes and innumerable contortions needed throughout - there used to be a squeeze box test at the MCG hut to see if you could fit through the tightest part. Despite being a 'dry' cave, you get fully wet within the first 30 minutes of the trip thanks to the Lavatory Trap, Canal and Puddle Lake. But it is undoubtedly worth it. This was my second visit to the cave within the past 2 years and I'd happily go back any day. It's a sporting trip coupled with some of the prettiest formations I have seen. What more could you want from your Saturday caving trip? You feel like you've done something worthwhile.

Lawrence on the way to Neverland

Chloe admires a huge curtain

There is a lot of crawling and squeezing through the choke to start with until you break out in to the Departure Lounge, so-called after one of the original diggers almost missed her flight because of the breakthrough that was made at the dig that day. From there a streamway is met and a faster pace can be sustained. But the cave is pretty throughout. Royal Icing junction is passed later on, along with Plank Chamber and Duck Under Boss (above which is the Duck Pond). The piece de resistance is Neverland. This is spectacular. Mark Burkey has some first rate photos of this area and Andy and Antonia Freem's video is also a must-watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMulwo1EexM 

Neverland. Photo: Mark Burkey

Even more Neverland. Photo: Mark Burkey.

The Pork Pies. Photo: Mark Burkey.

Lawrence, Chloe and Claire managing to stand in descending height order.

Whilst the three of us had been having fun in Upper Swallet, Bill had been off walking around the Fairy Cave Quarry area. We all met up in the Hunter's for food, a drink and a meet-up with local member Lizzy, and Seb. 

Lizzy and Seb at the Hunters.

Sunday saw us wake up aching after our trip the previous day. Consequently, Chloe and Lawrence decided to go for a walk along Cheddar Gorge whilst Bill and I headed to Fairy Cave quarry for a trip in to Hillier's and Fairy Cave. There was an art exhibition on in the quarry, so we got plenty of stares walking in to this in full caving kit and then disappearing through the gated entrance of Hillier's! It was intended to be a through-trip, but we didn't quite make that as my knee was not happy. We did manage to get through most of Hillier's and then had a go at part of Fairy Cave before I called it a day. Bill, however, was still going strong at this time.  Trip time: 2.5 hours.

Bill trying out one of the 'upstream' crawls in Hillier's

Bill in Hillier's and at the entrance to Fairy Cave.