JoshW
Well-known member
I'm gonna start this report with a summary statement. What an absolute shitehole. But good god did I need it after 9 months of easy tourist caving in Vietnam.
I arrived to the Wessex at midnight on Friday evening with a crate of lager ready to catch up with Chris Williams and Dan Kent who had been drinking for a few hours already. After setting the world to rights, we fell asleep in the common room at about 6am.
During our drunken conversation Chris had raised the decision that we would investigate Welsh's Green Swallet, a beautiful phreatic passage cave, which would keep our oversuits nice and clean as we were due to be going to Wild Wookey the following afternoon.
After reading the guide book it became apparent it was not a beautiful clean passage it was classic mendipian squalor - perfect, I couldn't be more excited. We woke up from our two our nap and packed a chunk of rope and some slings and headed off towards the cave.
Whilst wandering through the woods looking for a hole in the ground we decided we should have read the guide book better and we democratically decided that Dan should head back to the car to get my phone which had a picture of the MU page. He returned and we very easily found what could possibly be the cave.
We rigged around the tree and chucked the loose end down the first pitch. Dan decided to change the rigging around the tree and let go, losing the first of our ropes - dickhead. We rerigged with the other rope and I abbed down, leaving my "up" kit at the top of the passage, to be lowered down to me if I needed to come up or carried down in the bag if we were in the right hole.
I dropped through the hole in the floor and continued into a shitey crawl, shouting behind me that it was a goer.
I arrived at the second pitch hoping someone had bought both the first rope and my "up" kit. Chris arrived, no up kit, no rope. Dan arrived, up kit, no rope - dickhead.
So we decided to turn back and maybe come back later to investigate. It has the potential to be a nice trip for scouts that are bored of Goatchurch/swildons.
On the way out we hauled a load of rusted metal girders and corrugated iron that were clogging up the entrance.
Dan and I returned the following day, found the cave easily, didn't drop any ropes and continued down below the second pitch.
What. A. Horrible. Place.
I was in heaven; thick gloopy liquid shite, no chance of standing or even stooping, and near enough nothing to look at.
We got to a fork in the path near the end and I went left whilst Dan went right. I got to a nice aven and was glad to be standing. Dan got to scaffolding and shit himself so followed me. We headed back to the junction and I started to go down near the scaff - before shitting myself, deciding it didn't go and starting to head out. We took a look at another aven before heading back out the pitches.
We were absolutely filthy, and so was the kit - perfect return to the UK.
Once we returned to the Wessex, Les advised that if we'd kept going through the scaffolded dig looking section we would have seen the selenite crystals we had hoped to see - dickheads.
We will need to return to a) find the crystals b) test out rigging on the second pitch for taking scouts c) do some further conservation cleaning, as it has a lot of old shite in there.
If anyone is still actively digging in that squalorific shitehole and has anything they'd want left in place, please let me know, otherwise I will look at clearing out digging buckets as well as rusted old shite scaff (loose in the entrance).
I arrived to the Wessex at midnight on Friday evening with a crate of lager ready to catch up with Chris Williams and Dan Kent who had been drinking for a few hours already. After setting the world to rights, we fell asleep in the common room at about 6am.
During our drunken conversation Chris had raised the decision that we would investigate Welsh's Green Swallet, a beautiful phreatic passage cave, which would keep our oversuits nice and clean as we were due to be going to Wild Wookey the following afternoon.
After reading the guide book it became apparent it was not a beautiful clean passage it was classic mendipian squalor - perfect, I couldn't be more excited. We woke up from our two our nap and packed a chunk of rope and some slings and headed off towards the cave.
Whilst wandering through the woods looking for a hole in the ground we decided we should have read the guide book better and we democratically decided that Dan should head back to the car to get my phone which had a picture of the MU page. He returned and we very easily found what could possibly be the cave.
We rigged around the tree and chucked the loose end down the first pitch. Dan decided to change the rigging around the tree and let go, losing the first of our ropes - dickhead. We rerigged with the other rope and I abbed down, leaving my "up" kit at the top of the passage, to be lowered down to me if I needed to come up or carried down in the bag if we were in the right hole.
I dropped through the hole in the floor and continued into a shitey crawl, shouting behind me that it was a goer.
I arrived at the second pitch hoping someone had bought both the first rope and my "up" kit. Chris arrived, no up kit, no rope. Dan arrived, up kit, no rope - dickhead.
So we decided to turn back and maybe come back later to investigate. It has the potential to be a nice trip for scouts that are bored of Goatchurch/swildons.
On the way out we hauled a load of rusted metal girders and corrugated iron that were clogging up the entrance.
Dan and I returned the following day, found the cave easily, didn't drop any ropes and continued down below the second pitch.
What. A. Horrible. Place.
I was in heaven; thick gloopy liquid shite, no chance of standing or even stooping, and near enough nothing to look at.
We got to a fork in the path near the end and I went left whilst Dan went right. I got to a nice aven and was glad to be standing. Dan got to scaffolding and shit himself so followed me. We headed back to the junction and I started to go down near the scaff - before shitting myself, deciding it didn't go and starting to head out. We took a look at another aven before heading back out the pitches.
We were absolutely filthy, and so was the kit - perfect return to the UK.
Once we returned to the Wessex, Les advised that if we'd kept going through the scaffolded dig looking section we would have seen the selenite crystals we had hoped to see - dickheads.
We will need to return to a) find the crystals b) test out rigging on the second pitch for taking scouts c) do some further conservation cleaning, as it has a lot of old shite in there.
If anyone is still actively digging in that squalorific shitehole and has anything they'd want left in place, please let me know, otherwise I will look at clearing out digging buckets as well as rusted old shite scaff (loose in the entrance).