Back to Parc

A few weeks ago I had gone down a local lead mine with one of our students: Lydia. And we both had a whale of time! And of course that meant we wanted to do it again. And this time we hoped to recruit a few more people. Kate was keen on joining, as long as we didn't do it on a weekday. Miles was interested too. And Amelia, a lady who has joined the rescue team but who I had not yet met, and who had only not joined the previous time because she couldn't make it.

When push came to shove, only Kate joined us. Maybe next time we will find a few more people! But three is a good number. I picked up Lydia and met Kate at the parking lot in Gwydir Forest. We got kitted up and then we could resume our exploration!

Lydia had only been in Parc the previous time, and Kate hadn't really spent a lot of time there either. I know the place best, but my memory is hideously bad and I know I would be certain to see new things. Or at least things that I thought were new to me.

We went down the ladderway, of which I thought it was missing the last ladder. That illustrates my memory skills: and I had clearly forgot that I myself had been involved in making it so, years ago! That shows you how unreliable my memories are. But it did make things easier. I could just go down the ladders and rig the pitch down the ore chute. When Lydia came down she rightly concluded that my rigging could be improved on; I had rigged off two pipes, and if the second failed the first would provide backup, but if it would be the first failing, the second would fail too. So she redid it. And then we were good to go down.

When we were down the others asked me where to go. I had no idea! All directions were new to them, and none of them are new to me, so we could just randomly pick one and explore it. And so we did. And it didn't take long before it all looked rather unknown to me! Although I knew I must have been there before. And after a while I did realise I was somewhere I had been before, but not explored extensively. I seemed to remember thinking I should come back and spend more time there! Well that had somehow come true.

Kate and me in the level; pic by Lydia

At some point I stepped into a stope that seemed to be a dead end. But even dead ends might hold fascinating stuff! I walked into it, hearing Lydia behind me commenting on the paradox of it being dead but me still wanting to go in. But then you could clamber up at the end, and I did. And from there it even went further. But there was also a ladderway going up! And the ladders looked in good nick. A treasure! I scampered up. The ladders did hold. I had the feeling very few people ever ventured here. That is the amazing thing about some of these totally trodden mines; normally, you can still find funny little nooks and crannies where few people ever come.

The ladder way went up to a higher level; it was a false floor. It even was the end of it. On the right, there was a sheer drop. On the left it looked like the level might go to rock. I wasn't quite certain of getting off the ladder, though. Yes, the woodwork was probably excellent condition, but I rather be a little bit more sure. I attached myself to the ladder and took a few pictures. Lydia came up too; she stayed on the ladder below me and stuck her head over the edge. She agreed with my judgement; maybe skip this bit. This was a region to explore only with the aid of a drill, some bolts, and an additional rope!

The ladderway

The level it leads to

When we got down again, the other ladies were ready to go back. But what about the way onwards? They hadn't noticed there even was one! And Kate didn't quite like the look of it, so I scampered in with Lydia to have a look. We found ourselves in a big stope with quite some collapses to scramble over, and a tidy level going parallel to it. In the end smaller level went off to the right. We explored that until it ended in a gaping hole on either side. Time to go back and tell Kate what we had seen!

Me in the small level; pic by Lydia

When we got back we went back to the level we had come from. By that time I really really wanted to eat and drink something. Lydia had some granola bars or something on her, but Kate had left her bag where we had entered the level. But they were okay with sitting down a bit and letting me refuel. And then we went further into the level we had been exploring all along. After a while it forked. Where to go first? Lydia checked the right passage, which involved some crawling due to a collapse, while I decided I needed more water to wash down my sandwiches. We heard strange noises come from the passage, but we couldn't hear what she said, so I put my flask away again and had a look. It turned out the floor had dropped rather abruptly, and left Lydia up to her chest in cold water! She had loads of fun with that, but didn't intend to explore the rest of the level. It looked like the water levels wouldn't be dropping any time soon.

Lydia in deep cold water

We checked that the other passage was also quite flooded. We weren't quite feeling it! We decided that for today, we had gone far enough, and we would go back to where Kate's bag was. And so we did.

We then had to decide whether we would also explore in another direction. We decided against. I figured I would enjoy that more if I would be fresher. I had now drank all my water and would not last an awful lot longer. The other ladies also had satisfied their exploration urge for the day. So we went back up the pitch!

As all three of us had brought cake, at the parking lot we did have a cake session while the rain intensified. And then we all headed home again. It had been an excellent explore, and I quite like that we still have so much more to look at! One day I might go back, mentally prepared for swimming, to check out these flooded levels. And we only went in one direction from the ore chute, and there are more where that came from!

Exit selfie