Although we were down in Mendip, Bean decided that our first trip of the three day break should be a short 2hr drive to Wales including a McFinchie breakfast stop. As we arrived at the SWCC hut the sun was shining and it made a nice change to be getting changed outside in the sunshine, once kitted up we headed off up to the Top Entrance working up a bit of a sweat on the way. As we escaped from the sunshine into the first chamber we felt a bit more comfortable, and once our eyes had adjusted we were off on our journey. As Bean knew the way and was in front he just kept reeling names off to us of various landmarks, wedding cake, arete chamber, timos table and a few others to boot. Pretty soon we were at Pendulum Passage, our first pull through of the day. This was followed by lots of up and down climbing and several more pull throughs to eventually drop us into the Streamway, as streamways go this as got to be one of if not the best in the country and we savoured it. Water levels weren't too bad but still fun with plenty of places to take a soaking. We did head off for a little side trip to see a particular formation but sadly couldn't find it, so back into the streamway and on to the Divers Pitch. Passed this by doing the bypass then we were in for a fair bit of crawling and thrutchy bits before gaining the streamway in OFD bottom. This was fairly pleasant going, again a few deep sections to navigate but all good fun and pretty soon we were at the ladder climb back out to the surface and glorious sunshine. A slog back up the hill soon saw us back at the SWCC and getting changed again in glorious sunshine ready for the 2hr return drive back to Mendip
Trip time 5hrs15 of non stop fun
Bean, Lisa Wootton, Stu Weston, Myself
Big thanks to Bean as always for sorting, driving and keeping us entertained.
