On the first of October (or rather, the third as the first was a Saturday) no fewer than three new colleagues started their job! And though I could actually do without a night of boozing I let being a good colleague prevail over my health, and started an initiative to take them to the campus pub. And on Sunday I would run an 8 mile cross-country race. So one could assume I’d take it easy on Saturday. Wrong!
There was an opportunity to revisit a mine I’d visited before with the Cornish bunch. This time the plan was to explore some flooded bits. My favourite! So I managed to detach myself from my marvellous colleagues (who used quite a lot of charm in an attempt to sabotage that initiative, but one needs much charm to beat darkness, mud, gaping abysses and the lot) at 19.30; in time to go to the supermarket and buy some victuals for underground. They would go on to have a merry night, but come the Monday I turned out to have had, by far, the best weekend of all. Yay for caving!
I got up way too early and drove to Doublebois where I would meet Lionel, and together we drove to our destination. Half an hour too early, as Lionel hadn’t read the invitation correctly. This was mildly frustrating, but this way I got a chance to stroll around the charming Cornish village with its quite remarkable church. I didn’t bring a camera, though…
When I came back from my stroll almost all others had gathered too, and it was time to get kitted. As we could only park on the public road that was a bit of a challenge; one wouldn’t wish to disgruntle the locals by flaunting too much skin while trying to get into a winter wetsuit. And not much later we’d wrestled through the thorny bushes to the shaft. There is a laddered shaft, but why not have some fun? When threaded the rope through my descender and dropped myself into the unfathomable depth I was glad I had managed to escape excessive consumption of alcohol the day before.
When we were all down (that is, the rope users; another group had gone down the laddered shaft after all) we went to where we would try to get down to water level. Lionel fixed a rope and went down the not very favourable slope. When he was out of sight we heard him say “now I’ll make some noise!” and then Heaven and Earth collapsed. Or so it sounded. My heart almost stopped. He had kicked down “some” loose material… I was glad to hear his voice after the echoes had died down.
He decided that this was not the way, and while the others went exploring elsewhere he came back up. I showed him where the Cornish had figured we could have another try, but he discarded that route as too dangerous. And what Lionel considers dangerous is best stayed away from. So we just went exploring somewhere we hadn’t been before. And we had lots of crawly wady clambery fun! We were still wearing our winter wetsuits, and we hadn’t taken our rope climbing kit off (in case it would come in handy later) so we were somewhat overdressed for the occasion, but we were way too intrepid to let that get in our way.
When we came back to the others it was already quite late, but a third possible route had been found, and we couldn’t resist. Lionel went down yet again, and evidently reached water. In the meantime I changed the batteries of my headlight; we had been underground so long it was going out. And I was perched on a precarious ledge (attached to something solid though) so it wasn’t the best of circumstances, but I managed to not drop my helmet or batteries down the endless slope. By then Lionel was down, and I could hardly hear what he said, but I could make out I could come down too. Which I then did, aided by my rekindled light!
We ended up on a precarious wooden structure in a flooded ledge. This was enough to remove all the metalwork from our bodies so we could safely go for an exploratory swim. We fixed our kit to the rope, though; would the structure give it wouldn’t be lost…
The exploratory swim was enough to make our wetsuits worth their while, but only that; we reached dead ends on both sides, way too soon. Too bad! But now at least we know. And it’s quite possible nobody had been down there since the mine closed…
We scurried back up the rope and de-rigged. Now we really had done enough for the day! So we drank a sip of water and headed up the ladder way. It would take way too long to get up the rope…
It sounded so easy; climbing ladders. But this shaft was much narrower than the other, and they had only just managed to squeeze the ladders in, and as I was carrying a backpack I could hardly get up. Squeezed against the ladder by the bag I could only just move my knees! But we all made it out, de-rigged the other shaft, and got out of our wet kit. And then it was too late for an after-mine pint. But not for Lionel and me; we were hungry and far from home, so we went to a pub in a nearby village and enjoyed a splendid game pie. Plus pint. By the time I got home it was 8PM; I’d almost been gone for 12 hours! But I wouldn’t have wanted to miss this…
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