Sat 30th
Tony Malcolm
Returned to look at holes found on Thursday - unfortunately our latest short-cut was no better than previous attempts and we were obliged to find another hole on the way up. Nevertheless we progressed to the phreatic entrance next to the knoll and happily wandered through about 100 ft of passage before reaching an intermittently draughting tube slightly blocked by boulders. We abandoned this in favour of our second inward draughting rift. Tony descended the first pitch to find that the 'solid floor' consisted of a few boulders and having reached a point where a further bolt was required directly beneath these now mobile elements a retreat was made in order to clear this section. Nicky then removed most of the boulders whilst dangling from a sling and Tony then descended, placed a bolt, landed on the "floor". This turned out to be a boulder the size of the mess tent jammed across the rift. Tony placed one bolt for the continuation of the order of 100ft below. Then retreated once more. We continued to the hole we had found on our very first sortie but had not managed to return to since. Nicky wandered out over some boulders to place a bolt hanging from her toenails to give a nice freehang. Time ran out but inward draught was promising. We returned to the car by an even more interesting (but less bunde-prone) route.
Discovery trip / Next trip (deeper cave - 143) / Next trip (the other cave - 144)