Caving Miscellany .....

A collection of images from some recent trips.......

Malcolm Stewart enjoying the 'connection' on the Ogof Draenen Round Trip. Malcolm was part of the digging team that discovered this cave in the early nineties. The system now has around ninety kilometers of known passage. 

Martin 'Lump' Groves in Otter Hole entrance series. We were meant to be doing a carry trip to take cylinders to the end of the cave for future dive exploration. Sadly very high spring tides the previous week (the entrance series is in the banks of the River Wye near Chepstow and thus affected by tides!) had flooded some of the entrance passages normally unaffected and they had remained flooded. We barely got 80m into the cave!

Taken on a 'Billy no mates' solo trip in the Top Entrance series of Ogof Ffynnon Ddu. Picture taken using a short exposure and the light from a LED bike light.

Ogof Ffynnon Ddu ramblings.....

An early picture of 'The Junction' in Ogof ffynnon Ddu 1

I sometimes forget how good caving can be. With the general balancing of work, family and play some months can pass without a caving trip. The weekend just gone had seen a large gathering at the South Wales Caving Club to raise funds for the recent purchase of the land around the bottom entrance to the Ogof Ffynnon Ddu cave system.

The good thing about such weekends is you catch up with old friends. On this ocassion I arrive, sort sleeping arrangements and let the kids loose before tagging onto a trip with old friends Tim and Lou, and another of the Oxford Uni Caving mob, Simon. A fabulous social trip ensues - nothing serious - just a general plod from OFD1 to the middle entrance Cwm Dwr. Some furtling around in various places along the way, and some 'cave beastie' spoting - looking for Proasellus and Niphargus (true cave dwelling crustacea) in pools and streams along the way.

The Nether Rawl in Cwm Dwr taken some 20 years ago by the late Giles Barker

A few hours of caving and then a run across Pant Mawr moor and back with another friend and our dogs, before getting back to roast pig and real ale. Now that makes for a pretty fabulous day.

Heol Eira in Cwm Dwr. Technically Industrial pollution from an old lime kiln!