Jane Bradbury
Sunday:
After a little arm-bending, several members of the climbing section agreed to join the “dark side” for a trip into Agen Allwydd on Sunday October 23. To make the experience as pleasant as possible, I arranged access to Whitewalls Cottage. Here, four climbers (Chris Donica, Chris Smith, Rob Truckle and Charles II) struggled their way into badly fitting and trashed caving gear before accompanying four cavers (Jane Bradbury, Mike Clark, Gordon Scott and Rob Wake) along the tramway to Aggie.
Gearing up
Once in the cave, we lead our more or less willing victims through the entrance series, turning left at every junction, and so into the first boulder choke. Emerging from this into Baron’s Chamber, we assured our climbing companions that everything was easy from now on (there were muttering at this point about how caving uses different muscles from climbing!) and continued along the vast Main Passageway, past ancient mud and roped off crystals,
and so to the Music Room. Here, we rested awhile before investigating various passageways beyond the Cliffs of Dover. Finally, we retraced our steps back along Main Passageway and back to the entrance. Trip time, about 4 hours.
Admiring crystals
Back at the cottage, the climbers showered (the cavers stayed dirty!) and then we treated them to cake and tea before leaving for the drive home.