Lucy having already covered much of the trip in I will only fill in the gaps alluded to

The entering

Sarah, Jacob and I gave the other group a decent head start into Balkon which we soon extended by getting 'navigationally challenged' at the bottom on the entrance series. However, over-coming this we powered on towards the trident and honey-combe. There was a small incident just before the water refilling station where, due to our bags being so overly packed, a gas canister rolled out the top of Sarah's tackle sack. It stopped on it's own before I could grab it but still gave everyone involved a minor heart attack. There was some minor faffigating after the trident but we soon found the top of Honey-combe. From there it was a nylon highway. I struggled a little at the bottom of Honey combe and need Sarah to reel me in. We then extended the rope to make the next descent easier. It was at the bottom of hangmans that the trouble started. I had just done the traverse and was using my hand jammer to ascend to the crawl. I then unclipped it and moved it the next traverse line (as I had my hand jammer on my long cows). I then removed my long cows tail and watched in horror as my nice golden hand jammer plummeted onto the slop and slid down into the giant hole. There were a couple of seconds before I heard a loud 'chink'. Reconvening after the crawl (made fucking difficult by having to haul a giant over stuffed tackle sack) we agreed to keep going and possibly drop the hole tomorrow to look for my jammer. It was then a short stroll to the top of Mongol Rally, which starts quite nicely but soon becomes several large pitches over a titanic drop. It was at the last rebelay that I had my next incident. When unclipping my foot loop from my snap gate, I had forgotten that I had my pantin on the same snap and so watched, again, in horror as another of my ascenders plummeted into a giant hole. Absolutely furious at having lost over £100 (new) of kit I stormed into camp with the others to find Nat fettling with the hammocks. After some noodles and smash, I all but passed out into a fitful nights sleep.

The 'A' lead

Having arrived into camp at 1:30 the night before, needles to say it was a late start the next day, made even later by all the faffing. Me, Jacob and Sarah would push a more vertical lead while Nat, Lucy and Lara would push a more horizontal one. Kit assembled, the three of us headed out along the piss soaked Southern Pit-stop. Then was some Faffigating and a few wrong turns before we reached our lead. Jacob set the first two bolts leading to the pitch while I then took over and bolted and rigged the Y hang at the top of the pitch. It took ages to find two spots suitable amongst the cheese like rock. But once we had, and Sarah had re-tied my Y hang, I descended to the ledge bellow. Here I swiftly put in another bolt and fixed it with a fig-8 before clearing some space for Sarah to follow. Together we then looked for a suitable place for the next bolt to finish the Y hang and begin drop the next small pitch. The first bolt I tried set was fucked by virtue of the fact that the bolt it's self bent as I was hammering it in (probably because I was hammering at a different angle to the one I drilled). The bottom of this pitch didn't go anywhere save for a narrow horizontal rift. Surveying time. I had to ascend both legs to fulfil my role as dog and mark the first survey station. From there, I slowly re-descended with Jacob in tow operating the SAP. Once at the bottom again, I shimmied into the rift and was near frozen by the dramatic draft. The rift tightened after five meters into a sideways crawl which led into a narrow squeeze. I gardened some rubble out of the way to get this far. Beyond the squeeze was an even narrower (too narrow to pass) hole in the floor. This was the source of the draft. I dropped some rocks down and heard them clatter for ages. I even swear I heard one splosh. Once the survey was complete, we headed back up, Jacob de-rigging. Unfortunately, two of the bolts at the top of the pitch couldn't be loosened, even with a pair of pliers. This meant we lost two hangers. Surveying done, we headed back to camp where we were the first back. To occupy ourselves, me and Jacob looked for loose rocks we could use to cover the mud slopes around camp. Unfortunately, when the others returned our efforts did not receive the thanks we had anticipated.

Up and Out

It was another late start the following day. Having made the effort of getting down there (and scared to ascend) I wanted to try for another day, but Lara pointed out that I looked fucked, and, to be fair, I was. So I joined Lucy and Jacob on their early ascent. Using a Micro-traction I'd borrowed from Sarah as a hand jammer, we packed what we needed and set off to the wash spot. I led the way but after the first two pitches of Mongol Rally had to stop as my arms were killing me. I removed my Elbow pads as they were limiting my movement and then waited for Lucy to catch up so I could pinch some Painkillers. They worked wonders and it felt like no time at all before we reached the top of Mongol rally. All our cleaning work was undone by the small crawl to the base of Hangman. I also had a look down the hole that swallowed my hand-jammer only to find that it was far to deep to drop. We then made our way out mostly at my pace. The rigging on Honey combe being a particular bastard for passing up. It also seemed to go on much longer than I remembered. From there it felt like a quick jaunt to the entrance series, the second pitch of which was a right bastard after 50 hours underground. I was so happy to find that we had made it out in time to catch the sun and spent the night out sleeping on the plateau.