Ireby Fell Cavern Cripple Creek Round Trip

Saturday January 3rd 2015

Members present: Adam Walmsley,  Andrew Gilmartin,  Vicky Bailey

<u>Ruminations in Turtle Crawl</u>

To cave, or not to cave – that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and narrows of outrageous potholes
Or to take up bowls on a Sunday afternoon
And with a pot of tea, forget about it.

To crawl, to thrutch –
No more; and with a lovely lie-in we end
The kneeache, and the thousand natural shocks
That shins are heir to. Surely, a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd?

To nap – to snooze.
To snooze – perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub!
For in that slothful sleep what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off our Petzyl croll,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of lazy life.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of SRT,
The oppressing squeeze, the fat man's calamity,
The pangs of despis'd crawls, the freezing ducks,
The insolence of tacklesacks, and the spurns
That patient rigging of th' unworthy chamber takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a cup of tea in Bernie's?

Who would these fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat along a grotty passage,
But that the thought of something underground –
The undiscover'd country, to whose bourn
We travellers always return – enchants the will
And makes us rather leave those comforts we have
And fly to dangers that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cavers of us all,
And thus the native will to idleness
Is sicklied o'er with resolution
And enterprises of great pith and moment
Hold sway between the boulder chokes and shafts
And claim the name of action.

Soft you now!
The fair Walmslers!

Turtle crawl, in thy orisons
May all the joys of caving be remember'd...