.Facit Stone Mine/Quarry 31/10/2020
Cavers/Miners/Quarrymen/Blackjacks/Moondogs/Silver Beetles: Chris Lennon and Alex McCartney
Another Saturday, another named storm set to hit the prime caving areas, so we opted for the rainy-day activity of wandering around a maze of quarried-away sandstone near Rochdale. We tiptoed across the dirt bike track and were soon underground, out of the rain.
It’s a labyrinth in there, with passages branching off all over the place, and the proliferation of Ariadne’s threads – as well as letters and arrows daubed on the walls – are more confusing than helpful. With no survey, or prior knowledge of the place, we made our own way around, generally opting for whichever way on looked the most exciting. Most of the trip was spent walking along big passages, but there were a few clambers up scree, crawls, stoops and balancing along beams to give it some variety. We covered some ground and spent about four hours in there. I reckon we could go back in now and spend another four hours in there and everything would be different.
I reckon we could go back in now and spend another four hours in there and everything would be different.
Probably because the roof would have collapsed some more and changed things.
We worked out, given the length of time in there, we must have walked about 8 miles at an average pace of 2 miles an hour.
There was lots to see including formations, but if you asked me to find them again, I doubt I could. We even found a few exits and found out dear old Sean Connery had died half way through the trip.
