Here are a couple of trip reports instead of unrelated crap.
28th December 2006
Eastwater, Upper Series
Rachel, Zoe and Andys S, H and M.
The first post Christmas caving trip for most, if not all of us. What better than a nice trip around Eastwater to work off the hard earned blubber. After quickly obtaining a piece of unimportant equipment (helmet and lamp) that Zoe forgot, the party of us headed across to the cave (albeit after initially walking in the wrong direction, before being put on the right track by Andy S). There appeared to be two fairly recent collapses near the entrance one of which was taking the stream, so it looked like the entrance would be dry: boo hoo.
I can’t quite remember the exact route we took but I will try to describe it. After the descent through the boulders we went through the ‘recommended’ guide book and traditional route via the Upper Traverse. Some didn’t like it too much, although they complained after. Skinny Andy H in front of me went through on his side rather then on his back like everyone else. We pressed on to the top of Dolphin Pitch and turned back as we had no tackle (this was only an easy post Christmas trip), then went into the rift chambers where there was an amusing part of the cave that looked like part of the female anatomy. Unfortunately the hard slog and misery of an Eastwater trip soon evaporated as talk turned to female’s ‘little hills’ or apparently ‘mountains’, and everyone was looking too happy.
We headed on out via the ‘forbidden’ Woggle Press, which cut out the Upper Traverse and exited to a rather warm winter night. Trip time: about 2 hours.
29th December 2006
Swildon’s Hole, Shatter Series
Brendon, Rachel and Andys S, H and M.
The same intrepid crew from the night before with the exception of Zoe who had to do something called ‘work’, and the addition of Brendon met up in the morning at Priddy Green still unsure of what cave to do. The majority wanted to do Longwood, but we had a few problems. Firstly the weather was a bit dicey, secondly we had no key, and thirdly we had no permits. Andy S suggested a Swildon’s trip as a replacement, this seemed to have the effect of making everyone yawn and want to go home instead. However the trip was to Shatter Series where all of us (apart from Andy S hadn’t been), eventually we all thought we would give it a crack. We headed down the Wet Way and all was going ok until we got to the 20, when it appeared one man and his dog had decided to go to Swildons today, and there was a big queue. Us like all the other groups said “ we thought it would be quiet today”. After waiting for what seemed an eternity we got down the pitch we headed off quite fast to warm up.
At the Mud Sump, a group was ahead of us and had already bailed the Mud Sump, so we went straight through. We went down Shatter Pot through about three ducks or puddle which was all good fun. We called it a day at the longer duck before Pirate Chamber, as it needed bailing, and time was pressing. We saw passed another group in Shatter Series on the way out: we definitely didn’t have the cave to ourselves today!
Some of us (me) who were slightly cave unfit slowed considerably on the way out. We all took the short dry way to daylight. A good trip!
but doesn't avoid the large boulder choke 
