Dai MacDonald, Gareth Farr

By Dai MacDonald

Today Gareth and I headed back to Aggy, with the dig at the closest point to Daren Cilau as our target. As usual we were late leaving, it’s always one or the other of us, and it was a cracking day, crisp but sunny. We parked at Whitewalls cottage and were amazed how quiet it was, so we wasted no time and kitted up. Gareth dropped his phone and smashed his screen, he’s a tad clumsy.

We got into the cave at roughly 12:20pm and made good steady progress through the entrance to Baron’s Chamber, but about 80m into the entrance Gareth dropped his drink bottle and split it, so had to leave it for us to collect on the way out. We headed off to the right at the first junction along Main Passage, faultless past Bastard Passage and Flood Passage, but we had to search around for a while to find the entrance to the Second Choke. Gareth heading to high, and myself to low, eventually Gareth found it and we were off again. We stopped a few times here and there for Gareth to have a drink from his filter, which we always carry with us just for times like this. In no time at all we found ourselves at North West Junction, and we were off into a section we didn’t know, Main Stream Passage. The description we had warned of how slippery it is and as we entered it Gareth and I jokingly said “This is the lethal bit now isn’t it?” And with that I was almost flat on my back in the streamway, a very good save! It was steady progress along Main Stream Passage, it was slippery, no more so than any other streamway we’d come along already though. We passed Maypole Dig, but didn’t spot Chocolate Passage. I really liked the way the passage was changing to more of a phreatic passage now as we headed through Wormcast Passage to Deep Water.

We got to Deep Water and instantly before the water was even over my feet I was sinking in the silt, like quick sand almost, and I must admit it unsettled me a little as we were just about to wade into Deep Water. I went in first, with the floor slowly sinking away from under me, plumes of silt turning the black opaque water brown. I gingerly put one foot in front of the other and felt my way through as Gareth started to follow me. Gareth called out to say he wasn’t to sure about carrying on, we’d both spotted the undercut on the sidewalls and had images of Porth Yr Ogof’s resurgence. I spotted the water lapping at a bank in the middle of the passage, so called to Gareth to say it levels out. We pushed on through, only reaching waist deep, but immediately were confronted with another section that appeared the same. We stuck to the left hand side, a skinny, sloping, soft silt bank that slowly disappeared into the black opaque water, the silt wasn’t even visible. Once again Gareth said he wasn’t sure if he was comfortable with carrying on, but I said I’d push forward just to see how it felt underfoot. I got to just above my belt deep, the bank almost completely disappearing in towards the left wall, but continuing downwards, while it seemed to constantly be eroding from the silt dispersing under my feet, all added up to me backing out and agreeing we’re better off heading back the way we came. At the next club meet we’ll ask for advice and go from there.

The way back went absolutely fine. We stopped at North West Junction for something to eat, and I got quite cold while we stopped, but quickly started warming up again on the return journey. We got out at roughly 4pm to the sun just about to set, and as we were walking back we bumped into Paul, also from BCC on his way back to Eglwys Faen to retrieve his kids’ trainers. We got changed, had a cuppa and a pot noodle, then headed home after another great day in the great indoors.