Whilst someone was haunched over their PC trying to enter the inner workings of the blog, we were resting in preparation for the weekend’s adventure. Hmm … I wonder which resulted in the most fun?!
The weekend was a Chelsea Spelaeological Society meet-up at Whitewalls. We travelled down on Saturday morning and met 12 other cavers at the South Wales Caving Club. Our destination for the day was a through trip from OFD 1 to OFD 2. We have done this trip before, but it’s a spectacular streamway and well worth a repeat visit. In addition, it was extra nice knowing that SWCC now own seven acres of land including the entrance to Ogof Ffynnon Ddu I! Well done SWCC!
The weather had been rather wet and we were expecting fairly high flows in the streamway, so a decision was made to wear wetsuits under oversuits. This turned out to be a really bad idea! The water levels were slightly higher than when we were there last time, but not excessively so, and the only thing that was achieved by wearing a wetsuit was being extremely hot and not being able to move very easily at all. At one point I was scooping water into my wetsuit just to cool down!
The trip went as planned (except for the thunderstorms in our wetsuits) and we had a great time negotiating the various climbs, crawls and deep pots in the floor. Our photographer wasn’t with us, so here’s some pictures from our last trip in the OFD streamway in October 2007 (thanks Brendan)!
On Sunday we were pretty tired from the wetsuit-induced exertion and it was also club hut maintenance day, so Richard and I spent the day cleaning walls, moving rocks and making tea. We did manage a walk later in the day and found this signpost!
Not our last trip in the streamway (in fact, that was my first)! We’ve been several times since 2007, although that was the only other time we’ve done OFD1 to top.
That’s not a confusing sign, it’s just illustrating our “right to roam”! :zip:
Cool trip, tho’ obviously not cool in the ‘thunderstorm’ department.
You’re both looking so young and innocent in those pictures. π― π― π― π
it was only 5 years ago …. feels like 5 minutes!
You got older but your wardrobe hasn’t changed much since then! π
Indeed it hasn’t! We reckon that Brendan’s pictures had less pixels back then, so perhaps the wrinkles were concealed.
Based on that theory Laetitia has said we must sell our camera and buy a 0.1 mega-pixel camera immediately! π³
Mine has! I no longer use the borrowed green suit with the large tear in the back, or the elbow pad on one knee! Sadly, that particular outfit also appears on p.173 of “The Complete Caving Manual” by Andy Sparrow. π³