Sunday 15th October
We had a trip planned to visit Swynne Puke area in Swildons in the afternoon so to kill some time in the morning Pete Hall and myself decided to have a look at some of the caves we both hadn't been in on top of Burrington Combe.
We intended to visit Reads Cavern but got side tracked along the walk up by BOS Swallet, as neither of us had visited it before we thought we would take a quick look. The entrance was fairly well blocked with leaves and sticks and we got the general impression it had not been visited for a while. After clearing the worst of the debris out Pete led the way downwards, we both noticed a strong draught as we got further inside which seemed to me to be breathing inwards for a few seconds before reversing and breathing outwards nice cold fresh air. We got as far as the first pitch head before deciding to head out as we didn't have any gear with us.
As one of the current Cheddar Club digs involves trying to connect Rods pot with Drunkards (and in the future maybe BOS ????) we thought it would be prudent to scrap the visit to Reads and check the other caves to see if they were draughting as well as BOS had been given the weather conditions outside.
We stuck our heads into Drunkards (well just inside the entrance really) but no draught was apparent.
Next up was Rod's Pot, a cave very familiar to us both. We decided to do the Rods - Bath trip and see again if significant draughting could be felt in a cave that has a clear link though to its next door neighbour.
The usual steady draught was felt in the purple pot area of the cave, dis-similar to what had been happening in BOS Swallet.
I had never visited the bottom of the dig in Bath Swallet before so we quickly headed down there to take a look at the impressive enlarging and stone walling that had been done by another digging team. Well worth a visit i think if anybody is doing the through trip as an extra 'excursion'.
With our window for lunch getting smaller we decided to head out of Bath Swallet and fill up on some food in the Burrington Inn ready for the afternoons activities.
Slightly recovered, wet, muddy and full of food we met Steve White on a very foggy, grey, wet Priddy Green for the trip to Swynne Puke, an area of Swildons new to all three of us. It wasn't long before we met the usual Sunday afternoon queue of people waiting at the top of the 20ft pitch, despite the wet weather the previous day and the persistant drizzle throughout the day the water levels seemed pretty normal.
Luckily the group in front of us let us overtake them once we were down the 20ft pitch and we were soon heading up into Tratmans temple away from the noise of the main stream way and into the quiet muddy St Pauls series. We had a quick breather just before shatter pot whilst we identified the least dangerous climb up the wall and into the South East Inlets area.
As we hadn't brought a a survey we were relying on finding the correct route from memory, this gave a good exploration buzz to my trip as although the route is quite simple now i know it at the time we couldn't be sure we were in the right places until we had hit the Sidcot-u-tube as i had this bit of the survey best in my memory.
The Sidcot-u-tube was sumped but not by very much as far as well could tell, some of us were almost tempted to dive through but decided against it as we had planned the Swynne Puke trip rather than a Renaissance trip.
On heading back to the 42ft rift (and much more confident that we were where we should have been) Steve climbed up Maypole Aven for a quick look around, I followed him up the second climb, through the two puddles but stopped there. Steve went a bit further up into the next chamber bit before deciding to come back though first head first before deciding better of it and reversing the awkward section of passage feet first.
We were fairly certain that this section of passage was the new Swynne Puke round trip route but couldn't be sure so we descended and wormed our way back to the 42ft where luckily we had left our tackle bags.
By now we were getting slightly tired but decided to carry on with what we had set out to do, the Swynne puke pull through.
Not quite sure exactly where i was supposed to be going i started tentatively up the flow stone in the nook of the 42ft rift. After a bit of brute force over style i found myself next to an old climbing anchor tied to a wall and could see where I was supposed to be heading as a handline was hanging down from above.
At this point i thought it prudent to put on my harness and got the others to throw up the end of one of our ropes so they could use it as a hand line once i had secured it at the top.
The hardest bit of the rift was the topping out manourve i thought as i had climbed out wide to try and use the foot holds of the crack which resides there. once i had very ungracefully got out of the rift and into the passage i secured the hand line for the other two to use.
It wasn't long before Pete had reached the awkward topping out manouvre and then joined me in the passage, i was conscious that we were taking longer than we planned with all of our diversions so headed down Swynne Puke passage to rig the 11m pitch to save time.
I cant be sure as i was waiting at the top of the 11m pitch but i'm told Steve made it 41ft up the 42ft rift before deciding enough was enough, descending and agreeing to meet us in Shatter pot.
Pete and myself completed the trip through to Shatter and it was actually a great help having Steve waiting at the new bolts to pull us in from the descent from Swynne Puke to save a descent and re ascent of shatter pot at this stage of the trip.
We hastily packed the gear away, heading out the way we had came in all slightly worse for wear but buzzing from having explored some new bits of Swildons to us all.
We were late to the Cheddar Club meeting that night but we had a good excuse...!
