Topic

A great trip to finish a week's caving. It's been ages since I've been in here and much has changed:

The entrance shakehole now has an excellent footpath/steps leading down to the entrance of the pot, on the Western side.

The entrance tube now has a ladder fixed in place - SO much easier to climb out now! When was this put in?

The whole of the entrance series has been tidied up and reinforced with concreted sections to make it substantially less loose.

And as you head down to the top of the pitches you pass the new route (is it called Bubbles?). I met a diver on my way out who was planning to dive through the sump, who said it is handy to remove your harness for the first part of this new route, which bypasses Ding/Dong/Bell/Pussy.

The sump is currently dammed and has three large pipes in it, presumably to aid efforts to drain it during the current explorations.

There are also a couple more bolts at the bottom of Ding pitch, one useful and one not, to make safe the crossing to the start of the traverse at the beginning of Dong pitch. If that makes sense.

I'd forgotten what a superb trip this is, combining vertical stuff with an interesting bit of caving and the tremendous Duke Street. I always hated struggling up the entrance tube, so the ladder is a big improvement.

Solo trip.