Low key rescue training

The first round of my side gig was done, I had my Tuesday evenings free again! Free, that is, or dedicated to Welsh class. But the cave rescue team also trains on Tuesday night. Thanks to my side gig I had missed trainings, and I thought it was time to show my face again. Welsh can wait.

Some time ago the decision had been made to do recce missions; we have a bit of a dichotomy in the team, with Easterners and Westerners. Typically, the Easterners know the way to, an inside, the venues in the East, and the same for the Westerners. So if we would sometimes do a recce, then the people in the East would learn their way around the venues in the West and vice versa. And this was a recce in the West. Convenient for me; this mine was only half an hour away. I also knew it would be riddled with Thursdaynighters. But they won't keep me away.

I got there and changed. There were two blokes I didn't know yet; they were new probationary members. Everybody else I recognised as being from the west. And the two new people turned out to also be local. I'm not quite sure if this recce mission was a success! But it is a lovely mine and well, we were there anyway. We decided to send one team in at the top and another one further down the bottom, and then we could each come out where the other team had gone in. Our training officer handed out laminated plans. I tried to keep track of where we were! I can't claim to be particularly good at this. I quickly thought I was somewhere on the map that turned out to be the wrong level. Oh well. So some of the recce was a success after all!

It's a beautiful mine and I enjoyed being in it. We didn't linger too much; we did look around a bit in the various nooks and crannies but then we found the ropes the other team had put up and prussicked our way out. We were out nice and early. Time to change and home! I had a heavy day at work the next day, so I was quite glad to be home at a reasonable time…

Dave prussicking out under the watchful eye of Gethin