15th September 2003
People present - Duncan Jones, Iain Simpson

After an early start Bart drove us swiftly to the parking area, from here we kitted up and made the long but fairly easy walk to the entrance. At this point we considered the option of getting Barry to help us get in but decided to be good little potholers instead and leave the gates alone, this time.

Once in we were into nice easy walking passage, we soon arrived at a junction, we opted for the obvious passage, the Air-way, so named due its strong draught. After slowly ambling along this passage for a bit we found ourselves staring a rather formidable looking boulder pile, the Nemesis Choke.. Thankfully this intimidating looking choke is negotiated rather quickly, this marks the end of the powerful draught, it's intriguing to think of where it might go!

After reappearing from the choke we headed off along a small side passage, Ripsaw Crawl. This starts as fairly easy going with some odd twist and turns but the further you progress along the more inlets you come across, occasionally you will have no choice but to go through them and get a good soaking, other times a quick and crafty turn and you'll miss it. After some considerable distance and many inlets later you have a reasonable stream flowing along the floor, this is followed down a few entertaining cascades, the first being Log Cascade the second Flume Cascade. After those obstacles have been negotiated you soon hear a distant and ominous rumble of the Main Stream.

Arriving at the junction upstream quickly leads to a sump with the water welling up, downstream is rather sporting, so we set about using our tractor tyre we had brought with us for this stream. The ride downstream is a bit bumpy at times, especially at the Rapids, but there are some, thankfully, quieter stretches, Katanga Canyon is an impressive section of the passage. If you're unlucky as we were you'll be hit with a deluge from above by a couple of minor inlets entering from somewhere up in the roof.

As we approached the downstream sump we climbed up into an abandoned passage, which is adorned with lovely stals and straws, after following this for a while it lowered down to a crawl which was dug out, this in turn leads into a mined cave passage. T'owd man mined his way along this area following a rich vein and broke into the natural system, we owe them a great deal as there was still the tracks laid down and only a few metres away was a mine cart. Faced with such a tempting opportunity we hopped in and off we went! It was quite entertaining charging along the mined passage but all too soon the gradient eased and the truck slowed. Our fun and quick wheeled transport came to a halt.

We then climbed upwards into the easy going Cross passage, this brought us to the top of a climb, known as Oblivion. It's a very steep albeit short climb and when you know where to put your limbs its not as bad as it seems, although someone else in the cave insisted on trying to use his camera on this bit causing a minor hold up to us, but did provide a brief bit of amusement. After clambering over a few rocks we found ourselves gawping down into the Black Hole, this pitch leads directly into the spacious Blade Chamber, so called due to the rather nasty looking and rather large blade like piece of rock that projects itself from the floor.

After resting for lunch we followed a few passages out of the chamber, the only notable one being infested with glowing organisms, looked like a stary night upon entering that passage! This passage ends at the Haunted Choke, so called because some people have heard strange and spooky tapping noises from T'owd man that got trapped beyond this choke when they were prospecting and the faulted passage collapsed, blocking them in forever….

The only way to go now was back up and redo what we had previously done, all in all a good day out…

Duncan Jones