Methylene Blue also passes through unchanged. A chemistry student's contribution to a bowl of punch at student parties. Makes a nice looking drink and causes amusement when people pee green or blue depending on the volume consumed... There are also some red dyes whicb pass unchanged, but I...

I would guess the average is around 40 per club. UCET with ~100 members is bigger than average Dave

Although the volume is high, the pressure is very low and it's quite difficult to design turbines which are efficient with this type of flow. Of course the head could be increased by throttling the flow and letting the water back up in the tunnel & shafts - but this would probably damage the...

I wrote a report [1] in 2019 highlighting the problems with the original scheme and its hopeless archaeological assessment which conveniently omitted any mention of the adits and the bats therein. It seemed that the promoters of the project employed men/women with white sticks to do the original...

They say they couldn't find another way out - obviously to stupid/scared to brave the waist deep water of the gour pools and exit via the Ragman mine passage. As noted by Edwardov there are some photos from elsewhere, but none of the really nice stals and flowstone near the pools. Shame they...

Thanks for putting the effort into this! I still have a few pages from Ogofa I printed from the original website - sadly some are now the worse for wear. So it will be nice to be able to re-read some of the articles... Cheers, Dave

Hmm, the adit looks very inviting - must get out there in the New Year. It does look like it has flooded to the roof in the past so may be a wet suit job :-) Dave

The Hafna incident was related to overnight parking, not access. I doubt if the area sees regular patrols, NRW probably drive around the car parks before dusk to check if any vehicles are left. Since the area has some 'interesting' mountain bike trails, if someone came off on one of the steep...

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but CAL have just had a legal letter from NRW formally terminating the agreement which provided access to certain mines on NRW/WG land. We went through this last year, however NRW did not follow the required legal steps and decided in the end to backtrack...

A harness or load bearing belt and cow tails would be useful for safety. There are some holes in the floor which have safety lines to clip into. The CAL sites has a guide (www.caveaccess.co.uk) and don't forget to register! Mobile phone signals in the Gwydyr are poor to non-existent so you may...

There is a solitary loaded tipping wagon on a sub level ABOVE level 2. After you go through Roy's dig and crawl through the three collapses the passage carries on towards the ore diversion truck. There is an old ladderway nearby (can't remember whether is before or after the truck) which is...

It's a long time since I used my distroX2 but since I had a new cave to survey I thought I would try out SexyTopo on my mobile rather then using a PDA. Since the distroX2 hadn't been calibrated for a long time that was the first job: I had a few difficulties getting a good calibration figure...

NRW have been in contact with Cave Access Limited to report that a member of the public has reported a hole appearing a footpath in the nearby woodland. This may be due to a collapse of old mine workings and NRW have closed the footpath pending investigation. They ask that visitors to the area...

The directors of Cave Access Ltd (CAL) were told on 24/11/21 without any notice in a Zoom meeting with NRW that NRW has unilaterally terminated CAL's mine access agreement with immediate effect. CAL's scheme had been operating successfully for about 6 years without any concerns being voiced. ...

Cave Access Limited has an agreement with National Resources Wales/Welsh Government to permit registered cavers and mine-explorers to visit sites listed in the agreement and this has worked well for the last 5 years. Recently CAL has become aware of a restriction being placed on Rhiwbach Slate...

Just a quick reminder that if you want to lead parties underground in any of the mining sites covered by the CAL - NRW agreement then you need to register for 2020 by sending a email to: permits@caveaccess.co.uk stating your name, BCA number and Club name (DIM's just use BCA as the club). CAL...

Hmmm. Ballot closed at midnight yesterday. It's now 21 hours later. No sign of any white or black smoke on the BCA website so are the 6000 votes still being counted or is there a problem? Dave

Found a climbing harness, a cord loop with new screw-gate crab and a (dead) tiny torch at the bottom of the entrance pitch into Poachers Cave, North Wales last Thursday night (8/2/18). PM me with a brief description and I will organise its return. Cheers, Dave

Can someone PM the contact details for Brynmawr CC. Mails to info@brynmawrcavingclub.org.uk bounce as they direct to Paul's dead freeserve account. Cheers, Dave [with CCC Secretary hat on]

Has anyone got a spare PGEB-NM053040 batteries for sale as the one in my distroX2 seems to have died. I checked with Ben and he has sold all the ones he brought. If no-one has any spare I'll order a batch. Cheers, Dave