The Great Smoky Mountains

With Anne looking after Paul we took a couple of days out from caving to visit the Great Smoky Mountains which are part of a national park on the Tennessee - North Carolina border.

Fun Smoky Mountain Facts: 

• The park is the most visited in the United States with 11 million visits per year.

• The hardwood forest in the lower elevation areas is the most diverse ecosystem in North America.

• The name ‘smoky’ comes from the natural fog which often hangs over the mountain range.

• 99 different species of native tree grow in the park, which is more than anywhere else in North America or in all of Northern Europe.

• There are 31 different species of Salamander in the park, hence it is known as the Salamander capital of the world.

Before we got to the Smoky Mountains we drove past our hotel in Pigeon Forge. This was a surreal experience as the 6 lanes of traffic crawl at a snail’s pace speed limit of 35mph. Alongside are huge hotel buildings which look like an amusement arcade became a town. There was a huge haunted house, themed hotel and one which looked like it had been built upside down. We also drove past the wax works museum which had a huge model of King Kong climbing its spire and a Mount Rushmore sculpture which had the faces of the presidents replaced with films stars.

This continued as we passed by Dollywood in Gatlinberg, Dolly Parton's home town. This was styled as a tacky Alpine ski resort. I was beginning to think, what have I got ourselves into, when suddenly we left the town and were surrounded by thick forest. 

The national park was very well organised, with a visitor centre where you can buy very cheap guide pamphlets and ask for hiking/trail advice. On our first day we decided to have a chilled out trip to the highest peak in Tennessee which is Clingmans Dome. The walk is actually very short as you can drive almost to the top.

There were some cool, sweeping, views from the very 1960s style viewing platform, you actually only have to gain 91m over a distance of 800m to get from the car park to the summit peak at 2025m. The Appalachian trail runs over Clingman’s Dome and the summit is actually the highest point on the whole trail.

We decided to take a different route back to the car park and walked 0.5 miles of the Appalachian trail which has a total length of 2,200 miles (therefore we have walked 0.02% of the trail). Meeting and chatting to a thru-hiker reminded us of the South West Coast Path. Perhaps we should put this trail on the bucket list?

The following day we opted for a more serious hike, following the Alum Cave Bluff Trail to Mount Le Conte. This is the third highest peak in the park at 2010m tall. This time we had a 10 mile hike with 800m of ascent and decent. We had purchased a trail guide but found this was actually a nature guide. Olly therefore narrated all the interesting nature facts as we passed along the trail. Unfortunately (or fortunately) we didn’t see any black bears, which is almost surprising as on average there should be 2 bears in every square mile.

The hike was pleasantly shaded and started by following a pretty creek before gaining altitude. I carried the bag for the first section and Olly got to experience some of the sexist comments that I had, whilst hiking the coast path.  It also seems to be a common thing for Americans to say “don’t worry you are nearly there” or “you are doing really well”. This positive encouragement is a stark contrast to the British stiff upper lip. I’m not a big fan as when someone tells me I'm nearly there I expect the summit to be around the corner not 2 miles away. Brutal honesty I think is always the best policy when knowing how much walking is left to do.

After reaching Mount Le Conte lodge we struggled to find signs for the actual summit. It turns out the summit is in the trees so actually has no view and everyone instead heads to one of the panoramic look out points. We were headed for the summit to be completionists but someone on the route mentioned that today was lama resupply day and the lamas would be arriving in the next 20 minutes. 

My urge to see pack lamas overrode my need to reach the summit which is actually only 70m higher than the lodge. However we did walk as far the bothy complete with its food hanging rack to deter bears. 

We made it to the lodge in time to see the pack lamas being fed and watered. This group of lamas climbs three times a week to restock the lodge, each lama carrying between 20-30 kg. A little different to the Alpine huts which are restocked by helicopter. The lodge is super popular often being fully booked up to a year in advance.

After admiring the lamas we went to the cliff top look out which did have good panoramic views. After some picnic lunch including trail mix (which seems to be a popular US thing probably as it contains M&Ms) we headed down to the car. 

The Smoky Mountains were a pretty cool place and I would have liked to have spent more time doing the hiking trails and hunting for salamanders. We hit the road and headed back to Anne’s cabin to rendezvous with Paul before heading to Alabama for a caving conference. 

Tennessee Caving Expedition

We arrived in Nashville and after sampling a traditional US breakfast at a 24hr Waffle House we headed for Crossville. Luckily we had been given a free upgrade by the hire car company and Olly rode up to the hotel with a minivan rather than the Ford Fiesta we ordered. This was fortunate as I wasn’t sure how we were going to fit 5 people with luggage in a Ford Fiesta.

On reaching our Airbnb half the group headed back in the direction of Nashville for a caving trip that Paul had pre-arranged. The rest of us were left to battle through a group shop at Walmart and to deep clean the Airbnb which wasn’t in a great condition. We actually spent the following morning doing a further deep clean and taping up holes in the attic ceiling so we could sleep people upstairs.  

We then headed to Mountain Eye, the cave we would be spending the expedition pushing and surveying. Paul gave us a guided tour of the walk to the cave, the river crossing point (the river was extremely low at ankle depth) and the entrance series of the cave.  On the walk back to the car we could hear a lot of gun shots, we shrugged this off as being normal for America and weren’t too concerned that these were getting louder the closer to the car we got. We only became concerned when a ricochet hit the metal sign 20m away from us and the cars. On ducking behind the cars for cover we must have made such a commotion that whoever was firing on the other side of the riverbank realised we were there and stopped.

The following morning we returned to the cave to find that the significant rainfall we had overnight had caused the ankle depth river to rise to waist depth. Paul had been adamant that the cave didn’t flood and that the river would never rise over waist deep... After checking to see if the river was wade-able and having second thoughts we decided to walk upstream, across the bridge and back to the cave along the opposite bank to see if this route was even possible. After some slipping and sliding we made it to the crossing point on the opposite bank, although many of us didn’t recognise it has the river had risen another 6 feet in the hour detour. By this point I had major reservations about going in the cave, but we nipped in to check if the river had affected the entrance series. It had! The previously dry entrance chamber now contained a 6 foot deep lake which was rising 2 inches an hour. We made a rapid slippery steep retreat back to the cars via the steep riverbank. This was a rather exciting day and was made more exciting when Ruth noticed a snake close to where we were scrabbling up the bank, this was a bad day for Sam to have forgotten his wellies, but luckily the sandals Leo had lent him were fairly sturdy.

After the water had receded Olly, Rich, and I had a couple of trips into the other entrance to the system, Cobb Creek. Our mission was to try and find a lower entrance which would bypass the pitches at this end of the system. This section of the cave has a large chamber with relic saltpeter workings from the Civil War. We did nearly a kilometre of surveying but failed to find a new entrance or any unsurveyed “virgin” passage. At one point whilst inserting ourselves sideways in a very narrow sand filled tube we thought we must be there first people here but were disappointed to see a direction arrow scratched onto the wall, I have no idea why someone else had been in there.

One of the other aims of the expedition was to try and join another cave system named Hyperborean to Mountain Eye. There are rumours that a through trip had already been made, Rich had previously found what we thought must be the entrance which matched the sparse 1970s description.

Ruth, Leo, Sam, and I went back to survey it and were actually quite excited when we found no evidence of previous survey stations. Hyperborean is a UK style cave with lots of crawling over cobbles. It also is where the Cobb Creek river sinks and parts of it look to flood to the roof. However with Sam making check trips back to the surface to check for rain we surveyed a good few 100ms. One crawl led us to a chamber with a warm waterfall, which was likely coming in from the river bed above, however it was too wet to continue through the slot in the floor. Sam spotted a matching crawl way headed in the opposite direction and we followed this for a good few hundred metres, following a strong draft.

We remained excited until Leo discovered some bang wire (wire left from explosives used to enlarge caves) and a rat’s nest containing pieces of old style surveying measuring tape, slightly defeated we headed out for the day. A few days later we returned to continue the survey as the lure of larger passage and the strong draft tempted us. We followed Leo’s lead, surveying an actually quite nice chamber before finding an in situ rope leading up with a dropped survey tape at the bottom, then following the draft through a convoluted boulder choke and we made it to the larger stuff! This was actually also crawling in a shale layer with a dodgy looking ceiling, we named this Chicken Little Passage. Finally we reached standing room and followed the sinuous passage, we were nearing the end of the PDA battery life when Leo popped in view below us. Through an unlikely low crawl he found some pretty stuff before reaching a huge bore hole passage.

We returned with two teams for “bore hole day” we were excited as this was looked like the passage into Mountain Eye. Unfortunately team South borehole soon discovered the borehole ended after 40m in 5 small ways on, most of which lead to either tiny crawling passage or unstable looking boulder choke. We then found a slot in the wall and were super excited when Sam called out that there was a fresh survey station, We made the connection! Turns out we hadn’t but that the North borehole team were inadvertently on our patch, although they were pleased to see us as we provided a quicker way out bypassing a large rat mum and baby that they had crawled past.  The end boulder choke turned out to be a tantalising 200m away from Mountain Eye once we put the surveys together.

One of the more interesting leads left was a small hole in the floor with a 6m drop below onto cobbles. We returned with a bolting kit and light weight rope. The hole was very small but Nick and I just about managed to squeeze through. We followed a muddy stream way for some way when Clinton suddenly appeared behind us. We all were a little confused about how he had got to us without descending the pitch. On the way out Clinton commented on how surprised he was that the Americans had pushed such an unpleasant cave.

Returning via Clinton’s new route Dave, Ian and I surveyed another 300m of passage which actually had some very nice formations. We also managed to keep popping up into Pete and Fleur’s survey area killing off their leads. 

Meanwhile Olly had spent quite a few trips following Paul, at speed, from the Lott Dean entrance through fun bits off passage such as the Wanker Yanker (named due to the numerous sharp bits of rock yanking your clothing) and Buff River (named as you had to wear a buff to keep the flies out of your mouth). 

We also did some tourist caving in the area including secret cave, a large well decorated chamber below a short pitch. This was my first experience abseiling on US rope, it was so thick and inflexible that our European style descenders would not work without some slightly dodgy advanced rigging techniques.

We also visited Blue Spring cave, this is a very long dry system, there is a comprehensive survey of this cave, so comprehensive in fact that the survey comes as 200+ A4 sheets in their own special survey bag. This added a puzzle / escape room like element to caving, every so often we would have to sit down and lay out the survey sheets on a large boulder to work out where we were and where we were going. 

We spotted some interesting chert formations in one area of the cave which actually looked like tree roots.

Near these I tried to take a shortcut to avoid a climb, it was very small but I had seen Ian do it and thought I must fit. Obviously I underestimated the size of my arse and became wedged, luckily the others were on hand to give me a bit of a shove. 

Aside from caving we participated in some traditional American activities such as; eating catfish, BBQs, roaming around Walmart, drinking light larger, smoking cigars, eating large volumes of ice-cream and of course, shooting guns.  One of the US divers was super kind and invited us over to his parent’s house to shoot guns. After mentioning they weren’t really gun people they produced numerous handguns, revolvers, shot guns rifles and two AR15s (automatic rifles).

The next 5 hours was spent sending a barrage of bullets into the trees. The finally was shooting a tub of explosives from a safe distance with a automatic rifle. 

After three weeks we said goodbye to everyone at Nashville airport and Paul, Olly and I headed to Kentucky for some tourist caving.

Pembrokeshire

A few of us van dwellers decided on a multi-activity long weekend in Pembrokeshire. The trip was instigated when I saw a trip report online for Ogof Gofan. This is a sea cliff cave within the Castle Martin firing range which understandably requires a permit. After we successfully applied for a permit we decided to stick around Pembroke for a few days doing some walking and climbing.

Les and Henry were going to join us for the day’s caving before heading home. It was a lovely sunny day which was good as we could only have 4 in the cave at a time. The rest of us basked in the sunshine watching the climbers on the cliffs whilst we waited.

The cave is quite unusual and what some would call a collector's piece (but in a good way). To get to the entrance we had to source some hangers (metal plates to attach to bolts in the rock) and nuts. This proved quite challenging as they seemed to be a different size to those used in most cave rigging. However armed with different sizes borrowed from numerous cavers (just in case) we followed the description to the entrance.

We had heard that the cave had a reputation for being difficult to find. But following the instructions which said things like: "walk 100m then bear left to the cliff edge, you should descend the sloping rib of rock, not the sheer cliff". We found the bolts and Olly rigged the rope.

After a short pitch which was actually mostly free climbable you could swing onto a slope and crawl into the cave.

I descended with group one and after a small section of tight crawling we emerged at “the window”. This is a hole in the cliff face which gives a great view out to sea. 

We then continued through tight small squeeze and crawled some more before we came to a beautifully decorated chamber with many formations and an amazing green lake. 

There was one more chamber to explore which was also very pretty. Group 1 headed out but I remained in the cave to act as tour guide for Oli and Les. Les abseiled in first and after watching Oli land we headed for the window. Oli seemed to be a very long time taking her SRT kit off and eventually I went back to the entrance to find her. Alarmingly there was an abandoned SRT kit but no Oli. However I could here some rustling, it turns out Oli has ignored the obvious crawl and had inserted herself into a much smaller hole which was so tight she had had to remove her helmet. 

Oli retrieved we headed in the correct crawl admired the window then set off for the squeeze. This was actually quite tight and I wasn’t too sure if Les was going to fit. I thought he must as a larger friend of ours had fitted through the first squeeze but not the second. I encouraged Les and after two failed attempts he let Oli go through (which I wasn’t super keen on as if he got stuck both Oli and I would be trapped). Luckily on attempt three he popped through. It was then that it occurred to me that this was actually the second squeeze and not the first and so our larger friend had not actually fitted... But I put this to the back of my mind and we went and admired the formations and the lake.

Luckily with some clothing removed and gravity on his side Les popped back through the squeeze much easier on the way back. 

We de-rigged the cave and headed to the pub for a well earned pint. Les and Henry left us and the van dwellers picked a convenient lay-by for the night. 

After a morning toilet stop at a National Trust car park we managed to faff until midday to start our walk. Conveniently with two vans we left one at the start and the finish and walked from Whitesands to Solva.  

The Welsh Coast Path is very pretty in this area and we have been inspired to at some point walk the whole thing. We passed a pretty and well hidden, shiny, new lifeboat station built right next to the older one. A little later as we were passing Ramsey Island we suddenly spotted some porpoises in the channel, this was well timed for a lunch stop and we spent a great hour eating sandwiches and watching the porpoises.

After they left us we continued around the coast eventually hitting our half way mark at Porth Clais. Here we stopped for ice-cream, except Oli who refused to buy any ice-cream as they didn't have pistachio flavour. The cafe owner asked if we had seen the porpoises, he said there are there at the same state of the tide every day and that porpoises are basically smaller, stupider dolphins. There are some cool sea cliffs here and we decided to head back the following day to climb them.

It clouded over a little in the afternoon but the scenery was still pretty. We passed St Non's well, the spring here is meant to cure all ailments. Oli and Olly decided to test this, Rich and I were sceptical. Neither of them got ill but Oli has also drunk water from the Nile so she's probably not a good test subject.

A few miles later we walked into Solva which has a beautiful harbour. The guys retrieved the vans and we headed to another lay-by for the night. Oli's mum left her the most middle-class care package but we enjoyed grating Parmesan on our tortellini and sauce. 

We set of early the following morning back to Porth Clais. This was my first experience climbing sea cliffs and at first I was a little nervous about the belay options. You have to place your own nuts/cams/slings as there are no fixed anchor points. The site is tidal and we did some top roping first to avoid getting wet feet.

Olly then led the diagonal crack (S 4a) and Dreamboat Annie (HVS 5a). The second was a little nerve-racking to watch as there was a large section of corner climbing where he couldn’t place any gear. Luckily Olly reached the top without falling and crushing me, we then headed to the Red Wall, which is the little outcrop next door, and did some more top-roping; as the tide had risen again. This was an awesome area with some great climbs and we would definitely return. We even managed to finish just before the cafe closed and get another ice-cream! This time Oli caved and bought a vanilla ice cream, adding her own pistachios from her mum's care package.

We then headed to lay-by number 3 for night with van number 3 as Chris had arrived. The weather was a little unsettled for our final day so we chose to walk the another section of the coast path from Porth Gain to Whitesands Bay. 

This was another pretty section and we had time to look around the blue lagoon at Abereiddi. This is a former slate quarry which was flooded when a channel connecting it to the sea was blasted. The quarry is pretty deep and Red Bull have hosted their cliff diving world series there a number of times.

We eventually made it to White Sands and Oli and I explored some cool sea arches whilst the van shuttling ensued. Pembrokeshire is an awesome place and we will definitely be back.

Continuing the Van Conversion

After a 20 night trial run in the van over January we had a few additions/modifications to make.  We had developed a mild case of van envy after spending quite a bit of time in Oli and Chris’s van, often going over for a vanquets. We can’t have their additional head room but we could copy their idea of a sink complete with running water fed by an electric pump.

We had previously snubbed the idea of a sink as of course we could make do with a washing up bowl, and fill up our water bottles from the storage containers we kept under the bed. However being able to easily decant and drain away water was a luxury we were willing to work/pay for.

We also deliberated about what style of hob to have as all the cooking we had done in the van was on our small camp stove on the floor. We thought about copying Oli and Chris’s way of getting a family style camping gas hob which isn’t directly attached to the van. However due to our limited space it made sense to get a hob/sink unit.

We had also deliberated about whether or not to get a leisure battery. We had survived in Scotland by only charging our phones whilst we were driving. But we did have to retreat to a pub to charge Olly’s laptop one day. Also with our new sink decision our fancy tap would require electricity for it’s pump. 

So after initially deciding to go for a purely minimalistic approach to van converting we spent some time in the van and other peoples vans and due to van envy we decided to go full on with the conversion. 

The decision was made and now we had to make lots of other hard adult decisions like; what sink do we want? What gas type do we want? What colour MDF paint shall we buy?  and most importantly are we actually competent enough to carry this out?

Difficult decisions made and many stressful trips to B&Q later we had most of the parts and had arrived in Devon with enthusiasm to start work. These persnickety jobs turned out to be rather trying and we often felt like we hadn’t achieved anything all day.

Our different styles of “doing stuff” really became apparent during this stage of the van conversion. I am a planner and like to have the full job planned out far in advance such that we can make one efficient trip to B&Q or make one order online which will arrive in plenty of time. Olly on the other hand is a muller, he likes to think options out throughout the week and then splurge buy what he thinks we need. This worked well before when we still had jobs and there was ample opportunity for mid week mulling time. However, on a tight timescale this was a little more tricky. It’s lucky that next day delivery exists and to be honest its very difficult to buy all the correct things the first time.

Additionally, I have a annoying habit of leaving Olly in charge of the “complicated stuff” like gas and electricity but then reading many articles and forums, getting paranoid about safety complications then badgering Olly with questions like “have you thought about a gas drop out vent?” “Are you sure those cables are thick enough to take that current?” “Is that definitely not going to catch fire and kill us in our sleep?” And “Is that going to electrocute me?”. In reality I’m totally not qualified to take the safety high horse as I think my last experience of "doing electrics" was at age 8 when I wired up my dolls house with tin foil to a set of AA batteries. I don't think the lights ever worked but the foil got very hot, and the lights were promptly confiscated from said house by my dad. Also see below my first laughable attempt at a circuit diagram which contains many errors.

We had already constructed and installed the bed in the van before Christmas with help from Paul and Thirza, just in the nic of time before going away and actually using it. It held up fine and worked well with our storage boxes sliding underneath.

My first job this time was to finish carpeting the metal areas which were condensation hotspots, meanwhile, Olly removed both the passenger and driver seats to work out where to feed through cables for the leisure battery. This actually turned out to be easier than we thought and we even found some bonus coins down the back of the seat. We also found some bits of pretzel which is alarming considering we have never eaten pretzels in the van...

Olly then made some cladding panels for the back doors, he had just finished them and went to screw them on when he realised he had accidentally made them with vertical panels rather than horizontal. This didn’t actually matter as the double thickness of wood meant they didn’t fit anyway. 

Parking this for now we then moved onto making a frame and worktop surround for the sink. We were told it would arrive with a stencil to cut the worktop out, but it didn’t. However we made own with our now well honed stencilling skills. 

We next measured and constructed a frame which took a bit of thinking as to which bits to screw together first such that we could still screw in the further bits.

Frame assembled, top attached and treated. The next job was to cut out some MDF sides. We spray painted these with primer (it had taken us half an hour in B&Q to choose the colour), annoyingly they turned out a little patchy probably because you are meant to add a top coat. 

We had checked the frame fitted in the van, so we went ahead and screwed on the sides. Obviously we either hadn't accounted for the bulk head screw length or our cabinet wasn't quite square as with the sides on it didn't quite fit. 

Luckily 20minutes with a junior hacksaw later and 5 bulk head screws removed it was a perfect tight fit. 

The next rather committing job was to drill a hole in the floor of the van for our gas drop out vent. After some research we learned that having a gas locker with vent to outside would ensure that any gas leakage should safely sink and exit through the vent rather than build up inside the van to explosive levels. 

This seemed like a simple task but drilling a hole through the van is always rather nerve racking, we measured as best we could to hopefully avoid hitting anything important like the brake lines. In the end we decided to drill a pilot hole from underneath. I watched for the drill bit and was relieved when it poked through approximately where we wanted it to inside the cabinet area. 

We then used our new hole saw piece but the battery operated drill did not have enough omph to get through metal. Luckily we managed to borrow a mains drill from a neighbour and we were soon through the floor with all the important car bits still intact.

We then headed to Wales for the weekend, this worked out very well for us as some competent friends helped us install the gas pipe work.  Thanks Paul! 

 We then had the tricky task of wiring up our appliances to our leisure battery. To keep things simple we decided to just use one fuse box and run wires to a "charging box" which would sit at the end of the bed.

We then had a fun day of connecting different coloured wires to different things and though Olly had laughed at my first attempt at a circuit diagram attempt No.2 (which was more accurate) was actually quite useful as we now have a map of which coloured wires go to which things.

Olly then wired up the sparker for our hobs and the switch and pump for the tap. We also had to connect a water and waste pipe to the two storage containers under the sink.

The last bit to do was drill a hole for a battery vent tube. There seems to be mixed advice online about whether a lead acid battery needs venting but we decided to err on the side of caution and follow the manufacturers advice.

Annoyingly the vent tube we purchased wasn't quite long enough. However I had expected this and has scavenged some extra tubing from my parents house. Who would have guessed that keeping a catheter tube because you thought it would come in useful was actually a good idea!

So with our luxury running water and bedside charging facilities we headed off to Pembrokeshire for a test run.

Mooching Around in March

Arriving back from India, we headed to Lewisham to spend a few days at my Mum’s. We made use of our time in the city to catch up with a few friends over dinner and drinks.

I took Anya to Horniman Museum, mainly to see the large stuffed walrus. Rumour says that the taxidermists, tasked with stuffing this specimen, had never seen a walrus before; so they stuffed it until it’s skin was tight, whereas in reality they’d have large flaps of skin. A thoroughly over-stuffed walrus.

We also visited the butterfly house, and watched the butterfly’s lounge around and sip on the sugary fruit juice from thick slices of orange.

The day after we continued our tour of London’s museums by visiting the Natural History Museum. We went to see the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition; a great showcase of some amazing photos. I always leave feeling inspired to take up photography more seriously.

It was also a good opportunity to see the blue whale skeleton, which has replaced the iconic diplodocus skeleton, prominently displayed in the main entrance hall.

Leaving London, we headed for Bristol. The University of Bristol Speleological Society (UBSS), which is Anya’s first caving club, was hosting its annual dinner to celebrate its centenary. Formed in 1919 it was instrumental in early cave exploration in the Mendip Hills.

The dinner was held at Wookey Hole, and included a tour of the show cave dressed up in our finest rags. After the dinner, speeches, awards, and group photo; we headed back to the club’s hut to continue the party.

The hut is actually as old as the club and was purchased by the first president. It started life as a ladies cricket pavilion but was disassembled, transported to it's current location in the woods near Burrington Combe and reassembled for a meager £5. Due to the fading daylight and snow the roof was put on in quite a hurry which meant it was a little crooked which remains so today. When Anya was a student the hut had very basic facilities but after a recent revamp for the centenary there is now a log burner providing hot water and a screen on the outdoor long drop toilet!

We then headed for Anya’s parents in Devon, to spend a couple of weeks making some improvements to the van. We spent the weekend in the middle in South Wales at a training weekend for our upcoming caving expedition to Tennessee.

The main objective was to get to know all the other people on the expedition, to set out the objectives, and organise some of the logistics. We also managed to fit in a caving trip to scout a route for the next weekend (where we’d take some friends on a couple of beginner caving trips) and also practice and teach some cave surveying skills.

The next weekend we met Thirza, Paul, Claire & Danny in South Wales. We took them on two different trips in Ogof Ffynnon Ddu; one mainly dry, and one in the stream-way. A great weekend to catch up; and Paul even connected the gas stove in our van. Thanks, Paul!

We stayed in South Wales, and met a couple of people who were also staying up in the South Wales Caving Club hut opposite. We went caving with Rita on the Monday; and on the Tuesday headed up to Dinas Rock to meet Caroline after her first solo cave dive.

We helped her carry her kit back to the car, and then set out for a couple of hours climbing. We managed a few, short sport climbs. Anya attempted her first outdoor lead climb, but backed off near the top bolts. It was Anya’s birthday today, and Rita and Caroline joined us later for a celebratory caterpillar birthday cake. 

We then visited our friends, Rich & Rufus, in Cardiff. We spent Thursday doing more sport climbing in Taffs Wells. Anya, again, attempted an outdoor lead (Scurvy Rubber Ducky...Aaar! 4c). This time making it to the top! Her first outdoor lead climb. In the evening we went to see a selection of the best entries in the Banff Mountain Film Festival.

The day after we headed back to the caving hut, with Hellie, and met up with Les for a through trip in OFD.