9th June 2007
People present - Paul Jenkinson, Pete Dale, Duncan Jones, Rob Santus, Alex Ritchie, Mike Skyrme, Mike White, Neil Heywood, Dominick Mennie, David Hodgson (NT)

Weather: Warm and sunny.
Cave: Dry for a while, muddy then wet!

Meeting time was at 10am at the Darnbrook farm so my brother (Pete) picked me up just after 8 and we set off to the cave. It was a good hour and a half drive to the meeting place, started off misty but that soon cleared once we reached the motorway making it a nice pleasant drive the rest of the way.

We arrived at the farm at around 9:50, there were already most of the cavers there but we had to wait for a couple more before we could set off. While we was waiting everyone got changed into their caving gear, it was time for me to put on my brothers wet suit, it was a tight fit but it was better than nothing! Everyone had arrived after a short wait except one person, Dom, so we decided to walk the long distance to the cave. After a 30 second walk we were looking at the hole next to the farmer’s window that was the entrance to the cave.

Once the ladder was set up we began to descend into the cave entrance, a nice little drop. Once everyone was down we climbed up onto the first ledge into a nice tunnel that had a gap half way through that required a little jump to get over. Making it through the tunnel we emerged into a cavern with a small wooden ladder to climb down. This area had two options, one of them being to head a few meters further down to look at another entrance to the cave, this being the choice I went for to start with. While we headed that way the others carried on with the trip so when we came back we had to find our own way, well I put Pete in charge of that. It was time for the first crawl, nothing too bad, just some small rocks and a bit of mud. Making it through here we came to two different tunnels, Pete decided it was the right one that the other went down, another crawl through mud and rocks only to have Pete say “I don’t think they came this way!”.

So after our little detour we made our way down the correct tunnel which was a nice slippery one making it easy to get through, this tunnel had a couple of tight corners but nothing too hard. The end of the tunnel was a foot drop which was nice to slide down. The cavern we emerged in was a little rocky area, a nice place to rest before the next crawl.

After the rest we made our way through the next crawl which was in water, not too bad but not too comfy either! This crawl emerged in the MacColl’s Rift, an easy walk that didn’t cause many problems, just a mud slope that we had to get across, not too hard to do. Once we reached the end of this cavern it was time for another rest before we moved on with another crawl. The crawl opened up into a nice crouched walk until we reached the ladder that was set up by cavers before us, not too big of a drop but a ladder makes it easier. After a quick pose on the ladder I dropped down to let the next cavers come down.

This got us into the main streamway, a nice walk up the stream was in store for us. While heading up the stream there was a large fly to look at, after a while we came to a point where the roof became lower. This was a bit off putting for a newcomer like me but I crouched down and headed through the water until I emerged in another small standing area, only to find out that we had to head through another but this time the roof was even lower! This was easier than it looked, just cold! Once we had made it through we ended up waist deep in water waiting for the queue for the entrance to the worm series to go down. The worm series was a nice small very muddy crawl that ended up coming to a stand still because of some testing going on further up the tunnel. After some complaints from other people stuck in the smaller section of the tunnel the queue began to move again and we emerged once again into the last cavern of the trip, after some chatting and resting it was time to head back.

The trip back was nice and easy, after heading back through the worm series and into the deep water Pete decided it would be good to get a picture of me neck deep in water. I agreed to this only to find out that the water is even colder when it’s up to my neck! Once this picture was taken we headed back down the main streamway and up the ladder through the tunnel and into MacColl’s Rift again. This is where I made a mistake of being cocky on the muddy slope and ended up slipping and having to get Pete to help me back up! After that it was an easy trip back to the entrance with a couple of rests because my body isn’t used to so much exercise!

Emerging into the warm sunlight was a nice feeling, once we had everyone back above ground we cleaned ourselves down and got changed. We had a chat about the trip, said our goodbyes and headed home. Our journey home wasn’t just any normal journey either, we spotted a tornado forming, we parked up and watched it get bigger but it wasn’t strong enough and started to disperse but I did manage to get a picture.

After that ordeal we continued with the journey and headed home for some rest and recuperation.

Paul Jenkinson

Photos - Duncan Jones