107: Aled wants to drop a pitch, take 2
Aled
Heavy rain in the morning meant Andrew's proposed walk up the hill at 6:30am was postponed enough for Aled to wake up and decide he also wanted to go caving. An early start on the Plateau walk was hampered by shitty weather (lots of rain) and traffic in the form of cows and sheep. Upon reaching 107, Aled was happy to find his SRT kit had helpfully been brought down from the bunde-hill from the day before by Matt & co, so caving could commence!
Ominous sounds of water echo through the cave, but waterfalls confined to predicted places, most notably the "Easy Traverse", but Andrew's previous fettling of the rope to make it tighter kept us out of the worst of the water - phew!
An hour and a half into the cave saw us reach the far end of "Too Bold for This Spit", where the new route into China was mostly hidden by torrential water. Aled's proposed lead drop was quickly found (it is an A lead, after all), and would be great if it dropped into China as it was BONE DRY. Unfortunately, the rigging gear Aled & Matt dropped off the previous day had been unhelpfully moved to the bottom of "Nipped Down" so basically out of practical reach.
Andrew - "You could go down to fetch it, but you wont be coming back"
Looking at the dropped pitch at the end of "Too Bold for This Spit", Aled quickly agreed. Headed out feeling cheated :-(