Monthly Archives: April 2022

Aggy, Inner Circle 17th April 2022

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Aggy, Inner Circle 17/4/2022 by Dai MacDonald


Dai MacDonald
Gareth Farr
Tom
Maxine

Gareth and I arrived at Whitewalls with a stubborn white fluffy dog laying in the middle of the road, even after Gareth got out to coax it out of the way, it just walked along the middle of the road. We parked up, eventually, and got changed, sent the call out message and were ready to leave when Tom and Maxine pulled up outside Whitewalls. We were both planning an Inner Circle trip, so decided to head in together. Tom and Maxine got ready quickly and we were on our way across the tram road.
Once in the cave we made quick progress through the entrance series into Baron’s Chamber, where we stopped momentarily to catch our breath and have a quick drink. In no time at all we were at the Second Choke, and into Keyhole Chamber. We each had turns in leading and all managed well, although I’m sure I suggested a wrong turn or two, but we were soon at North West Junction. From here we headed for Turkey Pool, but on the way through Turkey Streamway Maxine said she’d like to call it a day, she had been caving the day before and felt really tired. We parted ways, with Tom and Maxine saying they’d have a look at Beehive Chamber before they left, and Gareth and I heading for the Inner Circle. Soon we found ourselves at Turkey Pool, I managed to traverse it, only getting my legs wet, Gareth traversed it as well but got a bit wetter. The rest of the way was no problem, and soon we were at the rescue dump around the Inner Circle. We stopped here for a snack and a drink, then made our way around the inner circle clockwise…so we thought! Before we knew it we were in the Swiss Village, this threw us completely, and we both started looking at the survey and scratching our heads. We retraced our steps and made a few more wrong turns, then decided we would call it a day and start heading back out. For the best part we were okay, but we made a few wrong turns on the way out as well, mainly me I think, but soon we were in the entrance series, and then at the logbook. We checked for Tom and Maxine, they were both ticked out, so we signed ourselves out for 1805, and headed back to whitewalls to get changed just in time before the rain started. Overall a great trip, and worn out for a trip to OCAF the following day.

Dinas Silica Mines and Local Caves 10th April 2022

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Dai MacDonald
Gareth Farr
Louise
Peter lamb

We wanted an easy day, so thought we’d check out the mines and wills hole, to the pitch head anyway. We met for 10am and got ready, and headed off after a cuppa. The mines were really interesting, but nothing compared to a cave, strange! We all commented on the steepness of them, then found ourselves in a shaft that went straight from the bottom to the surface, so we stopped for a snack and made our way onto the other mines. While walking the river we were stopping, looking at other bits of interest, and finding violets and wild garlic, but aiming to find Will’s Hole. Soon we found ourselves past both bouldering areas, and down past the lower caves, Ogof Bwa Maen Lower Cave, so doubled back and found Will’s Hole, which we all found disappointing because we could only go a few meters down into it. Ogof Bwa Maen caves on the other hand were quite an interesting, once I’d got past the spiders. We finished off looking down the rest of the river until we got to Ogof Pont Sychryd which we all enjoyed, but my highlight was finding a Morel Mushroom at the entrance, I’ve been looking for a while. After this we headed back to the cars, got changed and headed to the top of the Dinas Rock to enjoy the sun.

Morel Mushroom
Winch in Upper Dinas Silica Mine

Ogof Draenen Sunday 3rd April 2022

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Dai MacDonald
Gareth Farr

We started our day full of beans ready for the round trip, and had decided we’d try some alternative routes to the usual ones.

We got in for around 11:05 and made steady progress through the entrance while getting good footage. We made it to Cairn Junction and headed for a bad decision, Beer Challenge! We just wanted to see for ourselves what it’s like, and I’m happy to take Wonderbra any other time now. After this the trip went great all the way through Lamb and Fox Chamber, Indiana Highway, Megadrive to St David’s hall, then the survey came out for Squirrel Rifts. This was another route we wanted to try, rather than Agent Blorenge II. Once at the two climbs, at the end of Squirrel Rifts, we got a little confused where the way on was, but soon found the climbs and made our way down them. The squeeze to get into Haggis Basher is surprisingly demanding and I struggled with my bag and bottle through there. We had a look along the passage, to the choke and then back on ourselves to head for far Agent Blorenge and Chocolate Blorenge, by this point the both of us were feeling quite fatigued after the crawling. We carried on towards the sewers, thinking we’d done the hardest bits, but soon found ourselves at a hole dropping down in a rift that I tried to pass through but felt it was too tight, we looked for an “eyehole” that’s shown on the map, but not even knowing what an eyehole is, and both being on our last battery, we decided to head back the way we’d come. Instantly I was filled with dread just thinking of the two climbs we faced to get out of Haggis Basher, as I’m not the most confident with heights. When we got to the squeeze out of Haggis Basher, we searched the survey for an alternative route to no avail, so pushed through to the climbs. I went first, both no problems with the first, but on the second the exposure got to me, and when I climbed it the first time I didn’t go high enough to climb out and convinced myself I couldn’t do it, but spotted a climb in the opposite end of the small rift, which I could then traverse across the top. I climbed up confidently and found myself on a small solid ledge so stopped to look where to go, panic set in rapidly and I felt extremely exposed, so I climbed to the top of the passage where there was a small dead end tube I could sit in. I shouted down to Gareth “I’m stuck, I can’t down climb from here and I can’t make that traverse”, he could see nothing from the bottom, so he decided to try the climb where I tried first. He climbed up, passed the opening confidently and easily into squirrel rifts, while I’d quietly been having a panic attack, thinking to myself “what’ve you done Dai, you idiot! This is cave rescue now”. Gareth started suggesting things while I told him “I’m stuck bro, I can’t go anywhere”, then I’m the next breath, “just let me calm down and I’ll get across the traverse now”, and continually switching between the two for about two minutes. I asked Gareth to turn his light down because it was blinding me, and by the time he looked back I was across the traverse. Once I’d calmed myself the traverse out was actually really easy. From here we headed for Agent Blorenge II to save on time as we were running out of it. The rest of the trip went fine and we were out before we knew it, making the long walk back to the car.