Baker's pit ca

Yes, we were wondering too what that meant. We had worked hard for that knowledge! Our cave rescue training officer decided it was important we cave rescuers knew our way underground, and that if we didn't, we should be able to find our way with a map. And maps of caves are tricky; they are 2D representations of reality, and things like streets are not very far off being 2D, but caves sure are. And they don't have street names, and lots of places look similar.

So on a complete survey of Baker's pit our training officer had indicated a number of points. He had also given every team of three a set of unconnected, incomplete parts of that survey. So we had to transfer these points onto our maps, and then go find them. Every point was a letter.

I was with Richard and a new guy: Josh, who was from the university caving club. They were keen on coming out in time for a pint, so they figured out which point they wanted to do first, and legged it. We were supposed to get to know this place, but I was too busy keeping up with these youngsters I barely knew where I was going. And soon we had an A.

Josh and Rich consulting the cave survey. You may think this picture is tilted, but it isn't: the world is.

Then there was a period of all sorts of teams scurrying around like mad, getting to all these letters. It was good fun! I saw all sorts of new places.

After a while we had most. It was getting hard; our map had become muddy to the point of unreadability. We figured we only needed one letter more, and on the now seemingly abandoned cave we found it. Which made it beer O'clock.

We had AT!RPEKIBC, or something. We thought we had done well. But then we heard something about "all twelve". Oops. Roger explained it spelled "baker's pit"; I was quite puzzled why that would have a C. It turned out they had intended to make the letters spell "Baker's pit cave!", but they had realised that would take too much time, so they had left the two last letters behind. Aha. One girl asked "but where is the Q?" That turned out to have been a case of miscommunication; she'd heard "there's a queue here!"

I think I should laminate a map of that place, and then go and explore all corners of it. Not anywhere soon; there's way too much to do as it is already! But I think it will be fun, and it will also make me a better cave rescuer. And then I should do the same thing with Prid!