Goatchurch Cavern, Burrington Combe, Mendip.

When:  11 Feb 2015  19.00 – 21.30 pm.
Where:  Goatchurch Cavern. Burrington Combe, Mendip.
Who:    Darren T, Rach Sparrow, Nikky Dennis, Chris Castle, Trish Denning-Kendell, Pete Sanders and two possible new members.

After a layoff of some 8 months or so from caving I thought its about time I got underground again. This trip was organised by ChCC for a couple of new members to try out caving and it turned out to be a rather good trip considering it was in Goatchurch Cavern which has got to be one of the easiest of caves to cave.

 



Survey of Goatchurch Cavern.

 We started off in the Old entrance and after Trish gave a history lesson we spotted a couple of bats which got one of the newbies very excited. We then went down the Giants steps and followed the passage to the bottom of the new entrance. Here we met Rachelle, Nikky and Chris who were running late. We then preceded down the smaller steps to the terrace. we opted to go under the terrace and along tight rift to Boulder Chamber. Down the slide to Water Chamber and then onto the Drainpipe, This is a flat out crawl of 12 metres or so. Even the newbies managed this. After a brief rest we went back through the Drainpipe and made our way to the new entrance and exited the cave. I think everyone enjoyed the trip and it was good to say hello to everyone after my layoff from underground exploration.

 

Click on the link below to see a short video of me following someone through the Drainpipe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1Uv5R_frAk&feature=youtu.be

 

 

 

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Cuckoo Cleeves Cave, Priddy, Mendip.

When:  1 May 2013 7.00 – 9.00 pm.
Where: Cuckoo Cleeves Cave, Priddy.
Who:    Darren T, Rich T, Tricia, Rachel and Sean.

 The plan was too meet at the Hunters and drive to the lay-by which is about 1km from the pub. Nobody had been to this one before except Tricia but she couldn’t remember which lay-by it was so we drove all the way to the end of the road and turned around and headed back, the lay-by was supposed to be by some farm buildings so we stopped at what could be it. We were soon changed and walked across the fields to a depression and there it was a stone tube with a lid on. That is the entrance to the cave. The ladder was soon rigged and we all entered the cave.
At the bottom it’s quite tight and twisty. We continued down into a chamber and went straight on. We soon came to a stop as there was a pitch with no obvious way down backtracking a bit we realised that the way is too the left down a wide rift which goes into a passage this comes to an awkward climb which reminded me of singing river mine where I broke my foot. It looked worse than it was and we were soon following the old stream way downwards around and between some awkward rocks and rifts and soon reached flat roof chamber where we stopped for a breather and chat. Rachel told us about a cave called Waterwheel Swallet which sounded very interesting. We then followed a rift down and reached another chamber where it was full with bags of spoil from and dig that went down and round to the left. Straight ahead there was a crawl that looked very tight. We decided that was the way to the lake. But no one wanted to try and negotiate it. Remembering the stories of anyone except the slightest of cavers getting stuck I’m not surprised.  We followed the rift back up. The part of the cave called the canyon was very interesting on the way back up. Sean and I were the first ones back up to the large rift where we found a frog waiting for us. Sean put it in his pocket for release later. We soon found ourselves climbing back up the ladder and out into the fresh air. There are a lot of stories about bad air in this cave but today it wasn’t too bad although in places most of us did get short of breath at times. Will return again to take some pictures of the cave.

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Goatchurch Cavern, Burrington Combe, Mendip.

When:  21 April 2013 7.30 – 8.45 pm.
Where: Goatchurch Cavern Mendip.
Who:    Darren T, Rich T.

 First caving trip in for a while. Just a short trip to the drainpipe and back again and a look around at the bottom the tradesman’s entrance. We exited the cave via the main entrance and had a look in Sidcot Swallet on the way back down the hill.

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Manor Farm Swallet, Charterhouse, Mendip.

When:  19th October 2011 7.00 pm to 10.30pm.
Where: Manor Farm Swallet, Charterhouse Mendip.
Who:   Darren T, Flexx, Dave G.

 Our first SRT Cave. We parked the cars and went to the farm to pay our dues. Once we were changed we made our way over the bridge and across the field to the entrance of the swallet. Dave rigged the line for the first 50ft descent. Usually the rigger is the first down the line but as this was our first SRT cave Dave wanted to check we were doing things right so stayed at the top while we went down. I volunteered to go first so attached myself to the line and descended into the doom. All went well and I arrived at the bottom, where I sat surrounded by rock 50ft below the surface to await the arrival of Flexx. Flexx came down safely followed by Dave. Next was a long passage about 18 inches in diameter which leads down to the upstream passage. Next line to be rigged was a shortish 25ft descend down a very tight rift. All was going well, until while Dave was rigging the line he dropped his tackle bag with all the carabs and his camera in. Luckily he had finished rigging the line before he dropped it, so we descended after his bag.  At the bottom this opened out into a largish gallery, which had some very interesting curtains in it.  We had a look around, took some photos and decided that we did not have time to proceed any further, so started our ascent.  Dave was first up the second rift and I followed.  I found this very difficult due to the exertion of the tight rift and lack of oxygen.  On reaching the top I was knackered, and sat and waited for Flexx to come up, who was equally knackered.  Back up the passage to the bottom of the 50ft ascent, Dave was first up to the surface and as Flexx didn’t have a Warmbac he went up next and I followed last.  I found prusiking back up relatively easy, much to my surprise.  We decided we would return some time to explore more of this cave system in the future as we had only seen about 1/10th of it.  We got changed and off to the Hunters for a well deserved drink.  All in all a relatively smooth first SRT outing.

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