Daren Cilau
Spending 28 hours in Daren Cilau was one of the most memorable caving trips I have done until now. It was type II fun, like all quality caving. Any trip that doesn?t make you wish at least once you were tucked in your bed is barely worth remembering. What follows is a story of friendship, courage and growth.
The scene is set on a rainy weekend in South Wales back in February, on which CUCC had the brilliant idea to go camping in the famous Hard Rock Cafe in Daren Cilau. We were a party of five keen, slightly overconfident students and graduates, none of whom had the good sense to check the weather prognosis.
The cast is, Tom Crossley, a disillusioned student, Chloe Crossley, Natasha Wilson, second-time caver to whom the appeal of camping in a cave was very much greater than any of the dangers such an activity could entail, Harry Kettle, whose main character trait for that weekend was his hatred for his oversized tackle bag, and me.
As is typical of student caving, we woke up at 12:00 after a night of intense partying with Kent. By 15:00 we were ready, we?d had the famous caving breakfast, packed our sleeping gear, cooking gear, alcohol, and all other things you could need in the darkness below.
The first sphinx that barred our way was the entrance series, a 517m meter long, half-flooded tight crawl, the pleasure of which was increased tenfold by having to drag tackle sacks, that seemed to get stuck in every crevasse. Very quickly did Harry realise his mistake in taking the largest bag, I was very relieved that I?d arrived at the tackle store after Harry, because I had planned on taking that exact bag. Passing the Vice was as bad as expected, resulting in lots of swearing and lots of tugging on tackle sacks. I have a distinct memory of being stuck between two people, half submerged in water, and to top it off, cold water was dripping on my face. Just thinking about it makes me want to repeat the whole experience.
By the end of the entrance series, we were completely chilled to our bones from the cold water, but this is not where the pleasures of Daren stooped. We went around the Loop Route 3 times, before the combined power of the survey Tom had and the fact that he?d been here already helped him remember which way we were meant to be going.
How can a ladder be upside down? That is what I asked myself before arriving at the 20-meter pitch and seeing that monstrosity for myself. And you, my dear reader, are doomed to ignorance on the subject of the ladder, unless you visit that cave. At the top of the pitch was a collection of of clay figurines so abstract and varied as to put the Tate Modern to shame. One theme was predominant among the exhibits, the phallic looking argil statuettes.
The next segment of our odyssey was the Time Machine, the largest undeground chamber in the UK, so large that caving becomes a 2 dimensional exercise, instead of the 1D we are used to. To help the poor souls erring in those God-abandoned regions, the path had been marked by reflective tags. It is at the end of the Time Machine that we passed KUCC, who seemed to be in no hurry and was casually exploring some side-passages.
Some more caving got us to the Bonzai streamway, which is renowned for its many helictites. Curiously, it is still not known how they form. Ruairidh Macloed, a famous academic (you heard it here first), who sometimes likes to partake in the thrills of potholing, believes the process forming them to be one the few truly random ones found in nature, akin to Brownian motion. The last bit before reaching the Hard Rock Cafe entailed some mild wading in water, which was supposed to be only knee deep, but on this blessed day was chest deep. Ah, the joys of caving!
We arrived at the cafe at 11pm, tired, but very satisfied with the last 8 hours of caving. We were greeted by some diggers who were smoking a certain plant with a distinct smell under the light of the discoballs that had so tastefully been hung from the ceiling. We cooked some couscous curry in the stove I had brought, drank the port Chloe had heroically dragged along, and were ready to go to bed.
This is when the first (un)pleasant surprise revealed itself. My sleeping bag was damp, bordering wet! The drybag, at least so I had presumed, wasn?t very watertight at all, and thus, all of my belongings had been soaked. The sleeping bag had been spared a bit, because I had wrapped with in many layers of plastic. So off to bed I went, in a soggy sleeping bag. Off to bed, but not off to sleep. Tom, who was sharing a sleeping area with me, seemed to feel the same way, and thus we engaged in a conversation, the topic of which shall stay between Tom and me until the ends of time.
At 2am the shuffling and rattling by the Kent Uni Caving Club started. There was some talk of rising water levels and other nonsense which was stopping a grumpy and sleepless me from getting some rest.
At 3am, I had definitely given up on the idea of having a good night of sleep as the babble was getting more intense. Tom, again, shared the sentiment, and we had both realized that the water level was actually rising and were aware that if the trend continued, that could be it. Tom was oddly at peace with the prospect, saying that while it wouldn?t be the most peaceful way to go, it wouldn?t be the worst either. On the other hand, I realised that I wasn?t! I still had so much to live for. I had never enjoyed life as much as I had in the last few months, and the prospect of losing it all, made me appreciate it, alas, too late!
We decided to get up, and see what was keeping the Kent cavers so entertained. By that point, the main chamber of the HRC was starting to fill with water, where we had most unfortunately hung our gear to dry. A courageous KUCCer was saving any kit that he could reach. Slowly everyone else started getting up and helping with getting as much stuff to higher and drier land. And so, 14 cavers, instead of faffing, were producing some actual results by jointly moving caving kit, sleeping bags, bivies, food to the island that would prove to be the last bastion of dryness in that display of Welsh weather in the nethers of Gaia.
By 4am we were all huddled on that tiny island in our sleeping bags, sipping hot drinks, eating chocolate that had expired in 2013, and singing caving songs, and I couldn?t help but think that there were few places I would rather be at that particular moment. Despite the chaos and danger, I was happy. Slowly, we all started to make ourselves comfortable and started going to sleep, now properly exhausted.
Around noon (again!) it was decided that it was time to go, which required many steps, such as finding the kit that had been washed away, putting on very wet oversuits and helping with general camp chores. Needless to say that the gear that had been hung up to ?dry? was even more wet than when we arrived.
The way back was occasionally accentuated by the deep and genuine love shown by Harry to his tackle bag. Enthusiastic about sharing his euphoria, he proposed a Faustian bargain to the four of us, where he would buy three pints to whoever was ready to be liberated from any remaining trace of self-respect and carry his bag to the exit of the cave. Tom, all too eager to play into the devil?s trap, took the bait. This changed nothing much for the rest of us, except for the source of the swearing.
The little mentioned champion of this trip was Natasha, who not only had thought that this whole sleeping-in-a-cave business was a good idea before doing it, but seemed to not mind the cold and wet of the entrance series too much and was singing from the bottom (or in this case, from the point furthest away from the entrance) of her lungs while the rest of us were engaging in the caver?s favorite activity, second only to faffing, complaining and wondering what exactly it was about this whole caving business that made us come back every time.
We were greeted by nothing less than a snow storm when we came out, and Harry and me, being the cheeky chaps we are, decided to run to the hut, instead of walking with Tom, Chloe and Natasha. The only problem with our brilliant plan was that we had no idea where Whitewalls was actually located. And so, cold and tired, we had to run around to find the hut. In the end, we did, but long after the others had. Remember, slow and steady win the race.
That hot shower was arguably the best I have had in my life. Tom was having some slight problems with his body temperature regulation mechanism and had to be undressed by Harry and me and pushed into the warm shower. The breakfast leftovers from 33 hours ago tasted so good, rarely have I enjoyed cold beans, cold eggs, cold hashbrowns and cold bacon so much. After some faff, but less than usual, we were back on our way to Cambridge, were we arrived at 1:30 in the morning, craving only one thing, some sleep to consolidate the amazing memories we had just made.
In conclusion, if you happen to find yourself in South Wales on a rainy weekend, and have a group of kind cavers nearby, I would highly recommend you go visit the Bonsai Streamway to see the helictites, and you might be sursprised by a sudden feeling of appreciation, happiness and friendship!
Reporting, Wassil from CUCC
Pictures:
Highlights:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/19WB2Qccqw-WxSkOF5txd7x0zTjBT5H9f?usp=sharing
All pictures:
https://camcaving.uk/Blog/Album/16
There are significantly fewer pictures on the way back for obvious reasons.