Topic

With a much reduced group for the Parc Mine trip, we headed over to the parking and got changed. Due to a misunderstanding we managed to lose Barry on the way. I thought he was going straight to Cumbria but apparently he was intending to look at Parc Mine first.
We entered Parc mine through No2 Adit entrance, initially on solid ground, we soon came to a T junction with a traverse line going both ways. The floor in this area left a little to be desired (unless you wanted a quick route to level 3).
We turned right along the "Principal Lode" passage and kept to the left to avoid the holes and further signs of false floor.
After about 600 metres we entered an area of collapse with an apparently more solid floor. After a short crawl through a passage dug through the collapse, we entered one of the shafts of Llanrwst mine.
The Llanrwst mine was abandoned a long time before Parc miners reached this area. We went up some ladders, passing wooden beams and iron rods which were part of water pumping system. These artefacts were very well preserved. You could still see some of the rollers for the wooden beams.
We then entered the partially filled Endeans (Engine) Shaft with more pumping system remains still in place and a shaft leading up (about 50m) to the surface.
We returned to the traverse over the dodgy floor and went into the area used by the Bidston Tidal Institute. They were conducting experiments into the flexing of the earth's crust due to tidal influences. They had left a lot of polystyrene around and the place looked a mess.
We went back a bit and then down some ladders to what some call 'level 2.5' where we looked into 'Parc shaft'. At this point there was a bit of a mutiny and some of the team elected to leave the mine the way they had entered, rather than continuing the decent via an abseil into a hopper and a climb down to level 3.
Lukas, Ellie & 1 abseiled down a shaft next to 'Parc Shaft' dropped out of the hopper and into level 3. This level was a lot more stable with a solid floor and ceiling.
We did a lap of the hopper before heading toward the exit.
On the way to the exit, we found a side passage and decided to investigate it. It eventually split into two, one leg of which went quickly to a sump, the other leg went to some hoppers and what appeared to be a collapse.
We returned to the exit route and continued down stream eventually encountering a dam and some deeper water (pants deep on me) before crawling out of a hole into a cutting. We had to climb out of this to gain the path back to the cars.

Team: Lukas, Lukasz, Paul, Ellie & Dave.
Time: About 3 hours.