CUCC Expeditions to Austria: 1976 - 2024

Awoke restless after terrible dream that I had spilt all the coffee and had no time to make more before venturing underground. Up the hill in reasonable time, however in just 15 minutes into the walk to Top Camp Mike managed to topple over and cut himself badly on his hand. We were very poorly equipped to deal with this but cleaned it as best we could with hand sanitiser and soldiered on to the Stone Bridge. Once we had begun packing in earnest Mike decided he was committed and rolled his karrimat in a big red AV bag. Packed the shiny nice 8.5mm, Mike's drill, bunch of hangers etc. Down the cave in reasonable time, discovered an excellent kitchen counter in the main passage towards Miracle Maze so began to decant food there. Then went to have a look at the leads in Coconut Chamber while waiting for the Jape to show up. Once he arrived, it transpired that his entire supply of food for the camp was three chocolates and 3 curries, the first jape of many.

After setting up the cave link and failing to send/recieve anything we had a curry. Then Mike and I headed off to survey Balcony's arse while Luke and the Jape fettled the Cave Link. Got very muddy in the Arse only to break out at a junction, where we elected to look at the meander rather than the small tube higher up. Left a QMC pissing off upstream then back to camp for noodles. Schnapps and bed.

Awoke around 8am for an enormous shit then off to survey Balcony's Nostril, just off the start of the Elizabeth line. That ended in a dig, then we tied up the phreatic tubes in the Arse whilst Luke and the Jape bolted at the end of Red Light. Quick noodle stop at camp then back to the front and down to the bootom of the pitch, heading east along a very big rift with phreatic development on the other side (big traverse needed from pitch head). Around 70m deep to ledges leading to a further 4s drop, very promising. Stripped the nice 8.5mm out leaving metalwork in (so that the light rope could be used for pushing). Then inserted noodles into the Japebefore commencing to kill Keanu Breeze by shuffling and scuttling across the big jammed flakey block. This done (after having to place a rebelay bolt above my head) I surveyed into a downstream meander and realised that the shrapnel in my eye was more persistant than I initially realised.

Two more small pitches then the measnder continued as an utter shreadpiece and it was time to stop japing for the day. Surveyed back to an unlabelled Jape station then curries, candle worship and the last of the Schnapps. Tried to sleep the eye off but it didn't happen. Coffee grinding was a less involved process as Luke and Mike decided they couldn't risk it given the volume of shit in the Jape Drum. A final visit to admire the tarp and penultimate jape to surface via cave link then we headed out, abandoned the Jape to worship the candles, left him the drum, which he proceeded to empty into the Grike, sandwhich bags and all.