One mine for the road

If you fly to Norway on a Tuesday you miss the weekly caving trip, and that may even be a good thing. Caving is fairy risky, and one may have grave responsibilities in Norway (hence the trip there), and beside that; one does ot leave behind a whole house full of muddy kit that way.

But it doesn't always work out that way. Imagine for instance a man called Finbar developing a desire to visit a specific mine, outside regular PCG activities. He may pick an Monday! And who could resist such a trip, even if it is on your last night in the country. Just a few die hard cavers, including even some Tamar Moles! So what can I say. I went. And I did have visions of me busting my knee so bad I could not drive back to Plymouth from Tromsø with Rob, and sentencing him to do that entire distance alone, but I also discarded these visions as expressions of fears better overruled.

The entrance was an inclined shaft, and I was first to go down. It took me ages! The rope was not very slippy, and my stop is not very worn, and for a caver I'm not very heavy. I had to try very hard to move! But I made it. And hardly more than seconds later Ali was down as well. He was clearly in it for surveying, and asked if I would mind giving him a hand. Well, no, so off we went, into the pretty mine An amazing specimen as well, for crap field geologists like me! For some very obscure reason, someone had indicated all geological units in spray paint... then even I can make sense of it!

Pic by Mike

Jenny in the inclined shaft

An example of the spraypaint geology: "killas" is a specific type of metamorphic rock...

Ali ran away in a seemingly arbitrary direction. Maybe he wanted to compensate for the fact that Lionel hadn't joined us. In no time he was standing far away from any sign of the others, in cold, crotch deep water. It would be one of those days. And surveying is a game of standing still, and I was not dressed to that. Furthermore, I thought it was a bit of a waste to go caving with such an exquisite choice of fellow cavers, only to stand all alone in a tunnel with a laser distance meter in your hand. So after an hour I demanded to give my task over to somebody else. Dave had vanished with some flash gun assistants, but Bob the Archaeologist, Rick of the Muddy Digs and Finbar Without Epithet conveniently walked by, so I gave the pimped laser pointer to Bob and let Rick take me on a small sightseeing tour. A pretty mine!

Bob

Having eight people climbing up that shaft would take a while, and people were getting cold, so we decided soon to start making a move. Finbar had such cold hands he could not get into his harness without help, so Rick rigged him in while I romantically held his hands in an attempt to tackle the cause of the problem. And a rope can hold two people, which makes things much faster, so when that was done Finbar and I decided to go together. There was lots of loose garbage in that shaft, which you could easily kick loose, so we had to stay close together. We discussed who would go on top, while Rick commented on the countless opportunities for cheap innuendo caving provides. I decided on the man on top.

(All pics by Dave, unless stated otherwise)

We were a good team! Some more innuendo was created by Finbar slipping several times on his rubber boots, and the best way of assisting someone with that problem being pushing them in the bum, but we came up fast and well. There we had the somewhat bewildering situation of Finbar grabbing his hand ascender, which is attached to the central lock (is that a Norwegianism?) of one's harness, and illustratingly holding it into the air, saying "the problem may be that my thing is too long!" I then grabbed mine, and had to concluded it was even longer. Caving brings out the testosterone, to embarrassing heights.

In the bar afterwards Bob shocked us with his announcement he had accepted a job far away- he's leaving us! When I just thought he would be joining us. There goes the biggest caving treasure trunk of mining archaeology knowledge. May he be happy in the new job! The good news is, though, that Rick IS joining us. Bring on the mud! In large amounts! And on that note I'll now switch to Norwegian salt marsh mud. I'm blogging this on Gatwick airport: Norway here I come!



ps "central lock" is indeed a norwegianism. It's called the central loop! Makes much more sense.

Hen party

Is there anything more notorious for loss of taste, dignity and perhaps consciousness than English hen parties? The phrase brings images to mind of rowdy bunches of drunk girls in embarrassing outfits, mooning anything that lives, freely distributing products that previously inhabited the digestive system wherever it may be convenient... not a pleasant sight. Fortunately, there are also classy Brits who get married. And we have one in the School: Jessie, an all-round micropalaeontologist, about to tie the knot with Adam, her historian fiancé. She's not one for shocking the already jaded public with debauchery and exhibitionism. And she wisely organised her own hen do.

The plan was as follows: gather a bunch of girls at Canonteign country park, take a walk along the famous waterfalls, have a picnic, go home, change into something elegant, have dinner in town, and then see how long the night will last in the Gin Distillery and whatever other venue would be of the bride in spe her fancy. So we did! One of the ladies expected at Canonteign was Maria, who would bring 15 month old Rosa, and who consequently would be a bit late. What to do with the time? There were 3 signposted walks to be done, and we would manage the 15 minute one before Maria's ETA. And soon we found out the only way of taking 15 minutes for that walk would be to have a 15 month old with you, to whom you wish to point out all waterfowl and their offspring, imitating their non-verbal utterings on the way. But we still lacked that 15 month old. We had become a bit suspicious of the alleged one hour walk along the waterfall...

After the 5 minute walk several of the girls could not contain themselves anymore, and invaded th playground. Swings, and trampolines! Only for kids, but well, aren't we all still kids in a way. And then Maria arrived. The original plan was to do the walk first, but many were already hungry, so we changed that. And we laid out the most extensive and responsible picnic in a long time! Several recognised the coupled X chromosomes in this display of olives, fresh vegetables, fresh fruit, falafel, and more of these oestrogene foods. Stereotypical, but very enjoyable. Rosa was so kind as to improve the mood even further by wandering around mischievously and sticking her feet into a bowl of fruit in cream. And we managed to eat more than half of the food!

The sister of the bride popping the champagne

We then did some more running to the cars and back, and embarked on the anticipated walk. It’s a walk though the romantic garden of some Victorian nobleman with all strange quirks that come with Victorian nobility; the waterfalls that attract all tourists are man-made. Redundant miners diverted a stream and built the leat the water drops from. Somewhere along the walk you also come across a fern garden; another remnant from that time. But it’s a pretty walk, with both natural and cultural historic features, and soon we reached the top. They really were not at all ashamed of that waterfall being a folly; no attempt is made to make it look natural. It does provide a good background for hen do pictures. We just doodled around a bit, admired the view, chatted away, admired Rosa’s bad hair day and her flirtations with the young dog we had with us. As you do.

The falls it is all about

Shamelessly artificial!

The fern garden

We were almost back at the entrance when Jessie’s sister, a responsible mother, started screaming “a zip wire, a zip wire!!” It was clear this toy would not escape the abuse of some unruly adults. She ignored the signs designating the equipment to children and went on it. And again! It was a very fast one! I tried too. And Sam. And Heather. And Lauren. And Maria. With adult weight that thing went like lightning, catapulting you into the air at the end. Contemplate child obesity and picture what it would do to an expanded 12-year-old! But not relevant now. We had lots of fun, until Maria gave it a try, and Rosa burst out in bitter tears seeing her mother shot meters into the air and coming down hard. I had been having fun taking burst shots of these adventures, but lying down in stinging nettles for that purpose was not such a smart move. So startled and stung we retreated for a tea. Back to behaviour fit for our age!

While we had tea the topic of outfits for the night came up. Luckily! I had naively assumed people would show up in jeans. Au contraire! Glamorous dresses were on everybody’s mind. So when we came back to Plymouth I had 3 hours to write a conference report and bring out my inner lady. It was not going to be my best prepared attempt! As the weather was very hot I couldn’t be asked wearing something bulky or restrictive, which automatically means my blue dress. I have a nose stud that matches it! But I had worn that dress only once before, in a borrowed bra and with earrings of which I had lost one, so both regarding underwear and jewellery I had to think quick. I just did without a bra and the one earring, and hoped nobody would notice. Writing this I am by the way curious how many people raise an eyebrow at seeing me write several sentences at these issues. This is only the beginning; I think I should upgrade my wardrobe plus what comes with it! Bring the femininity on.


Dressed as casually as anything I biked to the restaurant. I immediately sneaked off into the toilets, and came out all ladylike. I was ready for action! And that didn’t keep me waiting: the others arrived too, and we had a nice dinner, except for the lady on my left: they had forgotten her order, then served her something completely different, and then something right but cooked entirely wrong. She gave up. But beside that it was good. And I went home, as I needed to do all sorts of things before the imminent Norway fieldwork, but the wilder ladies partied on until 4 in their glamorous dresses. I hope this will have catapulted Jessie in the direction of married life in a most satisfying way!

Jessie the soon-to-be bride (right) and Sam

Me with a niece of the groom

Water rescue

A river, that’s just a cave without a roof, as a wise man once said. I repeated that statement once to a colleague, who immediately reposted: “what a worthless statement, it’s also just dry land without the absence of water, and I could go on like that”. True, but the initial statement had some practical truth in it: caves tend to be water-made, and the water is often still present. Those who routinely wander caves will be used to water. To walking through it, to swimming, to going through sumps, to abseiling down waterfalls and SRT-ing up again, to rigging and ropework and all in very wet conditions. And that makes them very useful in case of an emergency involving lots of water. Quite possibly, the mountain rescue teams are less familiar with soaking circumstances. So that’s why the cave rescue team also trains with water rescue. And such a training came up.

We gathered, and were atypically hoisting ourselves into wetsuits and drysuits and the likes. And to the river we went! And for the next few hours we were decoratively bobbing around in our colourful helmets. We started practicing throwing safety lines at each other- take care to never almost drown near me! My aim is crap. But we also practiced turning overturned kayakers back, swimming out to victims while being attached to a safety line, and being reeled back in, and releasing ourselves form a safety line in case it turned itself into a danger.

The kayak-overturning was the most photogenic aspect of the training!

We also touched upon how to act in all sorts of scenarios, and two-kayak rescue, and examples of how things had gone wrong in the past. And then they brought me back to glacier rescue! We got some practice reeling in a stuck kayak. And what does one need for that? Pulley systems! So immediately I thought back at the “hjelpetalje” and “z-talje” of Strupbreen. But such knowledge gets rusty! Anyway. We did a veritable tug-of-war with the kayak, which did it no good, and then it was time to swim back, change into civilian clothes, and retreat to the pub.

Water rescuers on the way to the pub

Attempt at arty-farty waterfall photo. And hurrah for waterproof cameras!

The pub is where all wild plans for the near future tend to be wrought. But this time I needed to let them pass me by! No underground activities for me for a while. Norway beckons!

Flirtatious neighbour

During the train ride home from Sussex, Roland and I were the epitome of the calm, responsible scholar. That changed immediately when we reached the town of our residence. I knew he would meet up with Veit, a former PhD student, to watch the football semifinal in the pub. He had 4 minutes to hasten from railway station to campus pub... and he had been going on about how terrible it is to watch football with people who don't care about such things, so I expected to just maintan my responsible demeanor and walk home, but no: once out of the railway station he asked me to come along. And I looked forward to seeing Veit again as well, so I accepted the invitation.

Veit was fairly distracted by the match that had just begun when we arrived, and Roland changed back to orange and became absorbed too. However, Richard the Lab Technician was there as well, and he's always good for some philosophizing over a beer, and he doesn't care about football either, so I found good company anyway. But I had a lot to do so somewhere before the end of the match I buggered off, back to my attitude of law-abiding citizen. But more men were intent on challenging my morality!

Almost home I suddenly saw the neighbouring cat sitting on the road. Generally he's quite aloof, but this time he seemed to be in a very flirtatious mood. Which suited me fine, of course! So I crouched down, backpack and all, and fondled away. The feline charmer evidently enjoyed that, but he saw more possibilities: he cast one skilled eye on my backpak, and just jumped on. From its top he was still within reach, and in an excellent position to drool in my hair. We were shameless! And now when I step into the street I hope to see his masculine features somewhere...

INQUA field meeting

If people ask me what I do for a living I might respond I am a micropalaeontologist. Perhaps a geologist. Or a climate scientist, or palaeoclimatologist. In a way, it’s all true. But right now, before anything else I think I assume a geographer. It feels strange, though; when I was doing my master’s you could do either geology or geography, and I most certainly did geology, and wherever you have people split in two there was rivalry. Geography was for losers! But now I am immersed in it.


My job so far was focussed on fieldwork (getting the material) and lab work (processing the material); the former is very geographical, but I got used to it quickly, and the latter basically is micropalaeontology, which is something I am fairly at home in. And it’s a lot of work to count all these samples, so even though I have almost been a year on the job, I had hardly gotten beyond that point. And then the INQUA field meeting appeared on the horizon.

I finished my Isle of Wight counts, and then had my hands free for some data processing. And things came together! Before I knew it I had a presentation that showed clearly where we were regarding the Iceland field site: the results were promising, and we were only halfway along the road to completion. This will be interesting work! And at the same time, Tasha was doing the same with the Isle of Wight, and her results were fascinating as well. So all excited we went to Arundel, of all places, to present our first results. As it was a field meeting, we would get 1.5 days of field excursions with that.

Together with Roland I had trains take me through southern England to this village near Brighton. The trip was uneventful, the weather was pleasant, the hotel the conference would be was easily found, and once inside we were greeted by Rob and Tasha, who had arrived even earlier, and Phill, the main organiser. It was all working out really well! It was a bit strange to find out I was registered as Dr. Will Sahir, but there’s worse things in life.

Arundel features a pretty castle

We just went for a stroll, and then this appeared! A real light blue Subaru 1800! Oh! It even had a wheel barrow inside...

My next worry was that I was gagging for a pint, but the ice breaker would only start at 18.30, which was so late it made me skittish but too early to go for a pint elsewhere. I tried to behave myself until the bar opened, and I could leisurely make my acquaintance with all the other participants. Only having been a geographer for less than a year left me fairly unconnected, but this was the moment to do something about it. Apart from the Plymouth delegation and Tasha I knew nobody, but this was my chance to do something about that. And the circumstances were excellent: it was a very small conference, and there were geographical heroes such as Cecile Baeteman and Michael Tooley; the latter had been the supervisor of both sea level gods Durham now holds, with Antony being one of them. The former, by the way, being Flemish was the only non-UK and non-Dutch participant; for some reason or another, the rest of Europe can’t be bothered to show up. She may be large in scientific stature, but physically she’s smaller then me; it was funny to hear how it was her that taught Roland, who’s more than a head taller, how you core in difficult material...

 

The lobby of our classy hotel. Notice the classy scholar.

The next day we had presentations. We gathered in another classy room in the hotel, adorned with chandeliers, paintings of nobility, and well-draped curtains. There we heard hours’ worth of purely geographical talks. I’m not used to the small scales, either in time or space! But this was my chance to do something about it. After the lunch break it was my turn to talk, so I kept an eye on Roland, who was to chair this session. He doodled around a bit, and I was surprised at his uncharacteristic lack of punctuality, until he finally asked “who’s chairing this session? Oh, me? Ah! We’re running late.” I rushed right through my presentation; a good reminder that I should force myself to take it easy. On the next conference I should have not give in to that old weakness. But then Tasha presented her results, and then it was pub time.

The conference heroes Michael and David in action, overlooked by the Duke of Norfolk (I think)

We only had ~20 participants, so that fits easily into a pub, and we enjoyed two of these. It became clear that the group was very colourful. Geographers are nutters. After dinner that became even more clear; everybody gathered in the lobby to listen to the wild stories of comic duo Michael Tooley and David Smith, who had a shared history that went back to 1965, and there seemed to not have been a single dull moment in all these years.


The next morning I was enjoying my egg in the breakfast room when a Dutch male appeared in an orange shirt. Oh no. In the course of time three more Dutch males walked in. Is there a need to mention their colour of preference? One cannot escape the World Cup by hiding in science. And chaperoned by these orange-fevered nutters we went into the field. Southern England contains fossil beaches from several past interglacials, and a modern beach as well, and there is much to see. We went back hundreds of thousands of years, poking in beach gravels tens of kilometres inland, but also looked at modern coastal issues with moving sand bars, overwashed spits, and rich people living right behind eroding beaches. More geography than you can shake a stick at! And not only that, of course; lots of silliness going on: at some point I saw David’s venerable white head move at very high speed perpendicular to the direction the excursion was going in; smug as anything he and Tasha later emerged with ice cream...

A swing at an excursion point is asking for trouble. Michael couldn't resist. "You can't take him anywhere!" was David's comment...

All that geography did not pass without consuming time, and by the time we walked from a spit in a salt marsh towards the pub we needed that. And after the pub there was a shower and then the conference dinner. That is, for the more sophisticated of us. Not for the hooligans. They had managed to have the crew serve them in the pub of the hotel, instead of in the dining room. So we enjoyed a somewhat underpopulated but distinguished dinner, with an orange-stained interruption; during halftime Roland showed up to give a speech and thank the organisers. And then buggered off again. And during the usual after-dinner-tall stories by Michael and David they all happily emerged again. Bless them.

The match has just started a minute or so ago, so here they still look calm...

Wednesday we would prance around along the shore for a bit before all would scurry off in all sorts of directions. We saw all sorts of trial-and-error beach defences; you can have a row of breakwaters for only 4 million pounds! And what that then means to those living downstream is a completely different matter. But we all had trains, planes and ferries to catch, so this field day was soon over, and then only kissing everybody goodbye and embarking on the train trip back was left to us. With enough to contemplate! I’d never done such a small conference, nor such a comfortable one; the two are probably related. And such a small conference allows getting to know the participants well. And I never saw so much geography in conference room and in the field since 1994 or 1995...

The sea makes art of anthropogenic defenses!

The defenses run from the right to this structure. Notice the beach on the left is meters lower!

Elbonia denouement

Two yawning men and a bouncy girl in a car. The car pulls up at a seemingly random place along a country road, where an old Land rover is already parked. Another yawning man emerges from the Land Rover. What other could this be than another tale on caving? Or, to be more precise: on mine exploration.

Two earlier trips had resulted in a rickety bridge over a shaft, and very wet and filthy caving kit. We were now ready to cross that bridge! Or rather, I couldn’t wait, but I had gone to bed early the night before, and had managed to dry my caving kit since the previous trip down. The same could not be said about the men. Unhappily they wrestled their tired bodies into their sloshing kit...

This was the state Rick and his kit were in BEFORE we went in...

In no time we arrived at the shaft. I tied myself into the rope, and was eager to cross that barrier between explored and surveyed terrain, and places where no man alive had ever set foot. Brainstorming by the men on how they would draw the bridge back as soon as I was over, and only put it back in place after I had given my bank details did not distract me. And soon I could go! I quickly crawled over, hearing Dave behind me say to Rick “I told you she was mad!”. It was then time to get the men over too. All of them were moaning to some extent, especially Dave, who sounded like me in a traverse, but they all came over safely. Almost safely, perhaps; I noticed that the somewhat robustly walking men made the floor undulate... was it wood we were standing on? Centuries old wood? Time to bugger off, see what was beyond!

Me tying into the rope

The bridge! A beauty. Below it a nine metre shaft.

Me on the other side! Notice also the lianas in the middle... we almost had to stop Lionel trying these as a means of transport the first time we came here.

Ali making it across too

That search light is Dave's head lamp. On my request he was willing to shine on the lianas, colloquially known as "the vegetable". The two runners of the bridge reflect below it.

 The floor didn’t give. We walked on through the old tunnel to a Y-junction, with beautiful structures on floor and ceiling. The first were doomed, the second at risk; we tried to make sure we took photographs of everything before we ventured on. And the tunnel on the left did not leave much to venture; it came to a dead end. We made sure we properly surveyed all of it, so we spent quite some time in there anyway; then on to the right tunnel. The same features: a dead end, but quite some surveying time. And then there was nothing other to do than go back, surveying and taking pictures on the way! A modest exploration, but one has to start somewhere. And this had been great.

A floor nobody had walked on for a hundred years! The dripping stalactites had made pretty structures in it. But we had to walk through to get into the right tunnel. When we left it it was homogeneously orange...

One of the little "ponds" in close-up

Most of the straws and stalactites were rust-coloured, but here we had some copper-blue ones!

We crossed the bridge again, defied the mud, and came back in a more civilised place. There was a stream there, and Ali and I took the opportunity to clean up a bit. He took off his oversuit and dragged it through the water; I just laid down in it (both sides) and tried to scoop water over the filthiest bits. And then we walked back. Still in the stream I suddenly heard “ow, bugger, ha ha!” behind me; Ali had stumbled in the stream, and fallen over in his undersuit.

A break in the surveying work. Notice that Ali is holding a measuring tape. And for those who wonder why I look pregnant and locally bright yellow: I was carrying one of Dave's flash guns around, but as I wanted to keep my hands free I had stuffed it inside my cleavage. And I hadn't switched it off... Dave wondered if he could trigger it through the suit. Lo and behold, he could... the effect is modest, though, due to another flash gun pointed at me also going off.

When we approached the cars we were greeted by mud flows having their origin in Rick’s boots. We were quite filthy indeed! Even after the stream. But we figured we had a chance of charming the landlady of Chipshop into serving us a late beer, so we threw off our wet muddy kit, jumped into something less appalling, and raced to the pub. And the plan worked!

In the pub we discussed possible future plans, and why I could so happily cross a shaft while a traverse makes me shit seven colours in a spiral. For me that’s logical, but the men were puzzled. Anyway. Perhaps this specific trait will get me invited to more of such crazy adventures! I sure hope so.


Disclaimer: pics 1, 5, 6, 8, and 9 made by me, and 2, 3, 4, 7 and 10 made by Dave.

Bridge building

Last week I spoke of many people bringing scaffolding to an adit. The way to the adit was fresh and clean. Only a few people brought the scaffolding into the adit, which turned out to be an epically muddy place. Should one be surprised that not many people were keen on going back, and putting the scaffolding to use? Even cavers seem to sometimes suffer from a desire to keep some level of hygiene up.

Four intrepid explorers gathered where a week ago fourteen people had amassed, and a while later we were back in Elbonia. And the scene that then unfolded was indeed not necessarily enticing to all. Uncomfortably we dragged lots of heavy stuff through the thigh-deep gloop in the low tunnels, having to crawl in places. Soon there was no difference anymore between the green and yellow parts of my oversuit. And when all was at the desired location we could set to work. Picture four filthy people in a damp, stuffy, confined space with several decimetres of mud on the floor, trying to piece together a steel bridge, and make it span a shaft. Sounds like what you would want to do on a sunny Wednesday evening? It is for me!

We started with a thingamajig we could jam into the wall; this would be our safety beam. Strapped to it we could perform strange, but thus non-perilous antics. And we set out to assemble our makeshift bridge. That was the easy (though fairly time-consuming) bit; making this heavy construction span the shaft would turn out to be the challenge. While Rick and Dave displayed their construction skills, Ali took advantage of the situation by surveying the as yet unsurveyed parts of this mine, with me as an assistant. It's a straightforward exercise, but it can get complicated if your measuring tape and your notebook get covered in a layer of mud. Surveying a salt marsh is much more straightforward...

When we were done we checked on the men, who were done assembling, and had the bridge almost over. With all our muscles and body weight combined we managed to achieve some almost satisfactory configuration, but the hours had gone by, and by now the pub was beckoning us. Being the lightest of the four of us I had stayed away from the epicentre of activity, but now I had a look, and I decided that that bridge was good enough for me. But first things first! And the first thing now was to get the hell out of here, get out of the muck we mistook for outfits, and make a glorious retreat to a pint of ale. And so we did. I was glad I had some water with me, for the idea is that when I get out of my caving gear what appears is white skin, but this time the dominating colour was dark brown. Luckily the pub we were headed for is used to cavers; the landlady does not even blink if her customers come in looking like, well, they have been taking a several hour mud bath, as we had.

From behind our pint glasses we made the plan for a follow-up. Two days later we would reassemble; I would have the honour of crossing, and then pull the bridge into a more stable position, after which the men would cross too. I can't wait! And by sheer coincidence the next day the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences had an awayday at the Mountbatten Watersports Centre, where Ali was about to teach kids climbing or sailing or whatnot, and where he informed me there may not be much beyond the shaft, but perhaps there was more to explore in the shaft itself! We'll see what we find. I'm all excited!