A team of five: Phil, Keith, Evil-Stu, Matt and Fran (listed in order of ‘most-beans’) the latter two accepting their fate, mostly due to lack of brain capacity to plan an alternative trip, but each said we would see how it went and turn back as required (it was also my first 'Not for the Fainthearted - 'black book' cave!).
Phil led enthusiastically, the rest of us thrutching to keep up and Stu doing so much coughing that I thought he might end up in one.
Early on, I found a “mystery hand-line” in the stooping-walk section, it was really long and seemed odd for a fixed rope, but turned out Matt’s bag had unpacked itself(!) trailing 20m of rope back long the stoop and the low, wet section. Being tail-gunner, Stu was 'thrilled' to go back to retrieve it, so we could reunite it with the bag. Once we caught up with Keith and Phil at the next rigging point, Keith declared “you won’t believe what just happened to my rope” turned out the exact same thing had happened to him (a bad omen?)
We continued, progress in Gingling is not fast… muchos thrutching, crab-walking and contorting through smooth rifts and tight sections. After a fine pitch, Keith battled a squeeze before deciding the surface was calling. With Phil already through, the rest of us decided to “take a look” and managed to squeeze through, but it was not easy at all.
After the squeeze was a traverse line which led to a very decorated chamber (which is worth the detour to see).
We then dropped down to re-pick up the route and after some probing, Phil found the correct way down a vertical squeeze which apparently entered some very decorated passage (separate report please!!) I chose to wait here to save energy for the return.
Stu soon emerged back up the squeeze saying the others would continue, so him and I headed back with the biggest bag, a bit of strong-arming (of me, by Stu!) and the odd “stop messing about!”
Emerging (exhausted) at the surface, we were greeted by a bitingly face-freezing wind (remember when your mam used to say don’t pull faces cause the wind might change?) well this wind literally froze your face!
We made a cunning plan to put Phil’s stuff into Matt’s car, and head back in Keith’s van, I have never been so relieved to find a car key hiding place!! But by the time we had changed Phill and Matt were on the horizon.
All in all a great trip, and definitely one I want to go back to with more beans!
Lessons learned:
1) 1 hour of sleep is not enough for Gingling Hole.
2) If you’re stuck doing a “beached whale” move in a smooth rift, stop and look for the obvious alternative, don’t waste 20 mins farting around, stuck in it (see point #1)
