Lancaster Hole Midnight Slugworld!!

Saturday February 21st 2026

Members present: Abbie Heathcote,  Will Barlow

The concept of a midnight cave is just so much more whimsical than a daytime cave…

I absolutely love Slugworld, it has one of the few squeezes that I actually enjoy, the thrill of descending Lancs and all the pretties that your heart could desire.

It began with a cheeseboard and a dream… despite the cosiness of the NPC, all we could could think about was how awesome it would be to be in a cave, like right then. It was around 11:20pm when we finally put our plans into action!

After trying (and failing) to cajole Asher, Nuala and Viki into joining us, Will and I decided to embark on our midnight escapade together as a duo. A lot of excitable running around the NPC ensued as we packed our caving gear and readied ourselves for the drive to Bullpot Farm. Elly offered to lend us their camera to document the trip, and this was gladly accepted!

The drive was very awesome and we sung a lot of Taylor Swift to fuel our excitement, Will was literally driving the getaway car :) We parked at the Farm, making an effort to be quiet and rather discreet - as it was rather late and we didn't want to disturb the other club that was staying at the hut. (I checked their bookings calendar before we went, Meets Sec’s prerogative…)

We quickly got changed and then with low lights, began the walk to Lancs. I’ve never experienced the walk in the dark before, and it was quite reassuring to find that I was familiar enough with the route to not get disorientated - the reflectors help a lot of course. We saw a slug on the walk, which felt like a good omen. Upon arriving at the entrance to Lancs, Will swiftly rigged, while I made good use of the camera to take some action shots.

After Will called rope free, I proceeded to follow him down the pitch. Before I put the lid over the entrance, I made sure that the rope protector was both beneath and above the rope, so between the rope and the lid as well - the first time I’ve thought of a safety precaution that Will hadn’t already considered, would recommend to other cavers!

I stopped at the Y-Hang to try and get a photo of a cool moth that I saw - alas, he was also too excited about Midnight Slugworld to stay still. At the bottom of the pitch we remarked that it was remarkably drippy, probably the most wet I‘ve seen it there. The many puddles would be perfect for washing off some Slugworld slime later…

We shed our SRT kits and left them on a high level shelf away from the drips, then Will let me be the first to squirm my up to the Slugs! On my last visit, Viki and I had some serious debate about whether it's called Slugworld because the formations look like slugs, or because you have to slither like a slug to get there. I’m a big believer in the Slugginess of the formations, and they’ll be referred to as such in this report.

I’m not sure I can ever be trusted with my own camera in a cave, because the option to photograph the pretties slowed me down by like 400%. Without Asher we were down our typical camera-man, but between us I think we got some pretty awesome shots - which will of course be attached!

After having our fill of gazing at the Slugs and various other beautiful formations, we made the return journey back through the crawl to the bottom of the pitch. After donning our SRT kits once more, Will headed up the pitch first so that I could de-rig. I had a pretty epic weekend for getting more confident with this, and had a lot of fun de-rigging Lancs for the first time!

At the top of the pitch, it was great to find that the weather was still pretty lovely for the walk back to the car (it was unseasonably warm that evening, seems the universe was on our side). On the walk back we found some very pretty mushrooms and were absolutely delighted to see the same slug from before (I’ve named him Marty) still hanging out in the grass, just like he was waiting for our safe return.

Back at the car we changed quickly and began the drive back to the NPC - Will requested more Taylor Swift on the drive and of course I was more than happy to oblige - great weekend for girlpop!

It was quite vindicating that we had embarked upon and returned from our adventure before a bunch of people at the NPC had gone to bed, so we got to yap about our exciting excursion, and enjoy a cosy mug of hot chocolate with some other cavers (somehow way more tired than us) before bed. I usually can’t sleep that well at caving huts, but it turns out that a little cave before bed is the perfect way to ensure a good night’s sleep. Excellent trip 10/10 would do again (May Bullpot look out…)