I've had an interest in caving for a while, and although I've been underground before I've never been properly caving. It seems like a fun activity to do every now and then. I mainly live in Norwich but I'm also local to Cambridge. I've been having a look at clubs via the BCA and I've noticed 2 based in Cambridge which seem quite convenient to me. Is proximity important in this respect? Also, as someone with arachnophobia, are spiders a concern underground?
Hi there, I'm a member of Cambridge University Caving Club and also based in Cambridge (for now, probably moving back North in a few months - too far from caves here!). I'm also in two non-student clubs, the BPC and RRCPC in the Dales (I am often called a club whore because of this!).
CUCC is a great club, super welcoming and very active. Although we have some non-student members it's important to consider that this is primarily a student club with a mostly young membership base, and we do have quite a 'student' vibe in terms of evenings at caving huts being far from 'tame'. The benefit of a student club is that they regularly take novices caving, have lots of kit to borrow, and do regular SRT training etc. Also regular lifts to caving regions.
I joined the BPC when I left my original student club (which was Newcastle University Caving Club) and wanted to still be part of a caving club after uni. Non-student caving clubs tend to have a greater proportion of experienced cavers who can look after themselves, though we do still have fairly new cavers joining - often they do a course with Yorkshire Dales Guides first. I would highly recommend YDG if you want a proper introduction to caving and can afford it, Steph and Mike who run it are wonderful people. Likewise the CNCC have SRT training courses - you will need to know how to do SRT for most caves in the Dales and many in the Peaks.
The Dales stole my soul long ago so I mostly travel up there. But if I were based in Cambridge long term I would probably join the TSG, as the Peaks aren't as far to get to and I know many lovely and very active TSG members.
We then get into the details of where you want to cave. A non region-based caving club such as CUCC cycles between all the different regions, whereas many non-student clubs are based in one particular region. I won't start a debate about which caving region is the best because we'll be here until doomsday but you might be able to guess what I think (it's Portland, obviously).
As for spiders in caves, I have a friend with arachnophobia who is a great caver. Spiders only vibe in entrances sometimes, are very sleepy and still, and the ones in the UK aren't bad at all. Active stream entrances are often clear because of regular flooding. The ones in Ardeche are pretty grim though. I have a slug phobia which has not been a problem since I started caving 4 years ago, until the last 2 weeks where I have had 4 unfortunate incidents with slugs in caves in a very short space of time. These involved a lot of screaming which probably damaged my friends hearing permanently.