Ogof Daren Cilau to The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe - 3 day camping epic! - 18th Mar 2007
Sunday March 18th 2007
Members present: Adrian Turner, Andrew Vick, Debbie Flowers, Kevin Francis
Report by Kevin Francis
----------
Once upon a time there was a girl called Debbie, a caveman called Kevin, an odd chap with a strange NZ accent and a cuddly munchkin with a car of Mary Poppins proportions. They set about the greatest task they had ever undertaken.
Before
Dom’s pasta. 8p noodles. FAFF! Drybags. Websites, Chris Seal.
9am = get up. 4.30 = enter cave
Blizzard. Rainbow. Scary Drive. Changing in car. Naming things beginning with t and c.
To HRC
4.30 to cave! Debbie & Bob, Kevin & Adam, Andy & Val, Ade & Dom (pre-nameless!)
We didn’t get lost hurrah! (on way). Entrance: Kev “red and green rock” Andy “looks brown” Kev “yeah”. Tackle sacks not too bad as light. Needless stops looking at numbers. Wonderful orange box formations. Joy. Even Ade says crawl wasn’t that bad. Saw sweet teeth on floor. Andy disappeared on wrong climb. Up climb on left, clever Kev climbed with tackle sack. Big Chamber Nowhere Near the Entrance = log book, blow up doll, Debbie’s tail. Jigsaw passage slippy slidy squelchy mud. Into Valentines crawl was green rock. Climb down, dog/monkey rock. Climby ladder, deb and ade hardcore on cowstails. Mud shapes, YUCPC + 07. Rope climbs, awkward! Petit peu streamway, white passage crappily named i.e. not white! Then the TIME MACHINE! Nuts! Raisins, water, lost bottle cap. Cats eyes and reflectors. Hole into bonsai, red and orange arrows. Bonsai = sparkly, pretty, every heliocite the bonsai tree?! Daren Cilau Services. Confluence. 5litres water to carry, boo. Balloons, why there? England flag, “oh yeah we’re not in England!” Spider, snake, tin foil. “Cavers Event”.
HRC
(Andy’s wonderful drawing of camp)
Cool, crazy! Mentally big things carried down. Debbie’s toilet search. Tilly lamps and Andy’s eternal struggle. Where is ideal sleeping spot? Mass of carry mats. Search for replacement of wet sleeping bag. Found rubbish pile…oops!) [Kevin + poo - bogroll = happy Kevin, unhappy others] NOODLES! Crunchy pasta and Ade counting 8 mins (inability – 50 seconds in a minute?!) Food spillage. Noodles washed (and stayed) in stream. Effort. Trying to sleep. Eye spy – B and D! Ade and Debbie, hot water bottles. No zip on sleeping bag. Bloody crackly survival bag. Snore snore snore.
Morning – Andy: ooh I’ve just found a comfy bit! Inability to get up. Alarm set wrong, slept longer than thought (nb clock 1 hour out all the time!) Comedy ade quote??!?!?!?! Ade last up. Debbie up and cooking brekkie. Noodles!! Geo bars. (NB noodles packets are not condoms).
To the Restaurant at the end of the universe
Leave bed, turn left! Sandy crawl, in eyes  H Block sign and beach ball. Crawl. YUCPC sandcastle. Later on arm sticking up. Flowers marking s-bend. Ade happy, Kevin not. “Mind the step” “Reduced headroom” “Why be normal”. Crawl. Scrotty. Small. Brazil –why?! Shape perhaps. Burying kev’s leg in sand. Acupuncture passage, not so much joy. Rocky. Crystal ceiling, pretty. Crawl some more, ade  lots of discussion about going back then realised right next to Micron. Sandy passage mentioned in description non-existent, about 1m long. Fishing rod with cup. straight on pretties, left down a rope down micron into stream. Dextros in stream. Found correct stream, ankle grinder passage deserves name. Duck at one point, ade managed to keep pants dry. Climbed out into small chamber, Icing on the Cake. Pretty, but only because we saw it and not many people have! Traverse and rope to toilet (Kevin the sloth). Gnome on toilet with a bomb. Found ladder, up into the RESTAURANT!
Restaurant
Kevin there first. Loose rock. Starship Enterprise. Zillions of food. Cheese, burger mix. Fluffy spatula. Reserved sign. Broken virgin airlines jet. Stupid sleeping spaces. BEC gun. Gonna make tea but couldn’t be arsed to get water. Only 3 hours to get there. Not as good as HRC. The belfry – top sleeping bunk. Ade and Kev exploration, found echoey passages. Andy’s suit breaks. Kev filled up water. Returneth – extra sand in suit. Few photos. Speedy, but rest in all caverns. Debbie was surprised rock formations are made of – shock – hard stuff (even the pretty ones, fluff like stuff!)
Night 2
Well we arrived back early at like 6.30. sleep for 6 hours? No! All night. Cooking more noodles. Sat under space blanket (mm sweat) Kevin’s eye joy again. Rearranged camp then into bed. Wee smelling of noodles. Better pillow. No crackly sheet. Debbie found scrotty sheep. Windshield. Orange-Ade, teehee. Bad breath. Snoring.
Journey Home
Sucked! Really didn’t want to leave. End of an awesome holiday  Found alcohol just before leaving. A load of water bottles? No! smell of booze. Hidden by a monster stone. Crystal went really quickly on way back, hardly say pretties. Got to services sign, dumped bottles, took photos. Back to time machine, followed lights. Attempted photos. Tackle sacks + ladder = not fun. Down ladder, ade tried to kick rocks at us so we moved to “safety”. Would have been better to stay where we were. Exit “I can see ade, who can see kev, who can see andy, who can see daylight!” ETO 6pm Tues 20th.
Ran down hill. SNOW! Uber immense brilliant feeling of being ALIVE! Success! Joy! Hurrah! Giggling down hill for no apparent reason. Pant dancing in the car park. Hyperness overall.
Drive home, fun dancy music. Asda shopping: towel, beer, brownies, flapjacks, champagne.
