Ogof Daren Cilau Hard Rock Cafe Camp

Sunday March 29th 2026

Members present: Asher Goodwin,  Elliot Macinnes,  Elly Masteller,  Will Barlow

i started thinking about daren cilau just over a year ago, and since then ive been plotting to get myself in. there had been talk of daren trips this wales week however complications and faff led to final preparations and plans not being organised till the week before (classic). we settled on an overnight trip in the first weekend with elliot, elly, sqwill, and me; the others who wanted to do daren made other plans for the summer.

i borrowed some dry-ish bags off of my parents, borrowed stove and gas from sophie, and claimed some military rations off of flynn - i also finally bought new sets of thermals and a packamac so i was feeling pretty damn prepared.

until the fateful sunday morning we actually started packing on. i discovered that the club sleeping bag i picked up was child sized which led to a bit of stress and some last minute decisions to bring a warm coat, beanie, and handwarmer to solve this dilemma. i also woke up on sunday feeling like absolute shit (yay). i had come down with a cold that would be a bit pathetic otherwise, however was really quite horrible to deal with underground - i also had a headache that lasted a solid week and a bit after (i am writing this on the first day i have been free of brain pain since then, guh).

so, bad omens aside, we made our way daren-direction. stopped off at aldi on the way to get some extra snacks and to fill ourselves up. kitting up outside of the cave, i was feeling positively overjoyed, looking forward to the 2 to 3 hours of crawling and squeezing (i love that shit), i was completely unaware of ellys apprehension and very happily took part in some videos for the insta!

the crawl began just fine until The Vice. (now this is the only time a cave has made me cry. The Vice conquered me on the way in, AND on the way out, if/when i go back, i will not be letting it get the better of me again.) okay back to the story, The Vice is a gorgeous looking keyhole shaped squeeze, honestly pretty roomy in the top section that you are meant to go through, however i discovered that the downside of being a caver on the slimmer side is that you can fall into the tighter, shitter, parts of the squeeze. having made it through most of The Vice successfully, i realised my tacklesack being dragged behind me was stuck, as i shifted to fix this, i started slipping. with my back at a bit of a right angle in the wrong direction and unable to move my head or hips due to tightbits/tacklesack i began calmly explaining that i was really quite stuck. elly took this as a joke and promptly started recording me.

anyway, i escaped eventually after a lot of effort and almost tears (dont worry though, the crying comes later, the way out was worse) and we move on, counting radio boxes.

the rest of the crawl was a breeze for me and if i didnt have a tacklesack i think id be grinning the whole time. saw some bats too!!! after the crawl we stopped to get our morale up and share our various regrets before moving on.

i absolutely loved jigsaw passage, the wriggle was hilarious and the passage was pretty, we signed the guidebook and then the trip is a bit of a blank spot for 3 hours (though im sure it was fun) until we reach the ladder. as a classic past 'most-enthusiastic fresher' i had to volunteer to go first, it was a little freaky and it moved quite a lot but it was very fun in the end!

sqwill hauled the bags up, proving his hench-ness, and we stopped for a short snack before moving onwards to another blank spot in my brain. then there were some sick ass climbs, then time machine.

now everyone says time machine is massive, but oh my god i dont think you can really realise the size until youre there - its so damn cool!!! there are reflectors that show the easiest way through the boulder piles and theyre very helpful and cool and exciting! by this point i needed a piss (my first ever cave piss!) and i decided it needed to wait until hard rock for it to be special, i has heard elliot say 'oh its only bonsai streamway and then some bouldery bits then were there' and assumes that was like 20 minutes. an hour later we reach the 2/3 mile to hard rock sign and i still need a piss.

we get some water from the cool water pipe after walking past it a few times, and then i lose sqwills water bottle cap (im so sorry, i picked up like 4 bits of litter to make up for it). then we finally see the hard rock toilet and i pissed and it was awesome and then everyone else pissed too.

then it was time to see the actual camp! it was so cool but also omg very mouldy, theres a lot of pans and plates but theyre all so mouldy so i was wary of using them. we had our boil in the bag meals boiled in cave water in a mouldy pan and it tasted like a michelin star restaurant. we collected some roll mats and got super cozy in a size passage and we got a bedtime story from elliot before sleep.

sleeping underground in the pitch black was so weird, i woke up a lot but it kind of just felt like a blinked a few times and then sqwills 8am alarm went off. crazy. we had some breakfast and were out of the camp by 10am! we decided on going back out of the crawl, as miserable as elly found it, it was the quickest/best way out for out situation. the way back passed even faster and i kind of feel like i teleported to the ladder where we had some hot lunch (even more delicious than dinner) and then decended. oh there was some more crawling before/after the ladder that was super smooth/soft and fun!

then we were back at the entrance of the crawl!!! i was very excited for it honestly and i also wanted to get out in the sun as we had made great time on the way out so i went first! it was very fun and i liked all the bits that sqwill and elly didnt - until it was time to face my arch nemesis. The Vice came up again, just after box 1. we stared at each other a bit before i decided that the push tacklesack infront tactic would be key, i begin doing this and my bag promptly fell into the bottom/middle of The Vice. i weakly attempted to pull it out however every time i pulled up, i started slipping into the tight bit. i began to cry. (fellas, that is the first time i ever cave cried, this is a momentus event). as my desperation peaked, i asked for help and sqwill came. he rescued my bag which at that point i just wanted to leave in the squeeze and he became will 'the bridge' barlow. we passed all the bags forward by me throwing them onto wills wellys in the squeeze, him reaching down and pulling it over his head, and then dumping them on the other side. amazing.

i made it through The Vice without falling in (yay) and then on the other side i decided to continue following sqwill as the taste of daylight was much too exciting to wait about. i now feel incredibly guilty about this as elly got stuck in The Vice too, and me and sqwill had fucked off ahead so only elliot was there to help them. i vow to conquer The Vice next time in honour of both elly and myself.

once out in daylight i breathed very heavily and chatted with sqwill until the grunts of a crawling caver became audible and elly appeared! sqwill took their bag and walked them quickly back to the car as i waited for elliot. we soon caught them up and i apologised to elly, as repentance to elly i said that i would make sure we filmed the end of all the videos before we get changed.

then we all felt the consequences of forgetting dry pants and modesty towels so we all stripped off facing away from each other and went commando. the pants-less ride home was pleasantly uneventful and we got back to the swcc in time for dinner.

everyone did amazing and i want to give massive well done to will, elly, and elliot. it wasnt an easy trip and i think we all did fantastic.