Topic

A revisit to the venue for one of my earliest SRT trips...
Bags packed for both routes (I'm sure there was only one route when I first did it), we headed over to Kingsdale.
A brisk walk over to the lower entrance to check that it was viable, in case anyone was up for the long crawl. Having decided that it was clear, we headed up to the top entrance.
On the way up to the top entrance I spotted a party ballon in a gully. I had make my way down to the gully to "Stuart" it before continuing to the cave. The balloon made a bid for freedom on the way down the streamway but was re-captured and put in a tackle bag.
It was further to the pitches than I remembered and the water was flowing quite quickly, so we could tell when we were nearing the drop.
I rigged the traditional route. The traverse into the first pitch was something else that I had forgotten. There is an extra bolt on the first section of traverse not shown on the topo and a choice of bolts for the second Y hang. I missed the rebelay on the final drop, making the final section of the descent a bit splashy.
Paul and Lukasz followed me down the traditional route while Matt rigged the high level route and was followed by Bernice.
We wandered down to the point where the passage got narrower and there was a decorated oxbow on the right, before coming back and swapping routes for the way out.
Getting to the pitch head, we found couple of cavers who were just about to descend the traditional route.
We passed them and headed out of the cave. The couple overtook us when we waited at a widening of the passage to regroup.

Team: Bernice, Matt, Paul, Lukasz & Dave
Time: About 2 hours