Peak Cavern Bimble, with only an hour and a half of faff

Saturday April 18th 2026

Members present: Antje White,  Asher Goodwin,  Charlie Wookey,  Lucy Anderson

On the lovely warm Saturday of our TSG weekend I decided that I very much did not want to do Rowter and was planning on doing P8 on the Sunday so did not want to join James trip - which left me carless and tripless - a perfect chance to explore Peak Cavern! I recruited Antje, Lucy, and Charlie. Me and Antje had both been there previously but my trip was very faff-ful and Antje didn’t remember much, so we were going in pretty blind. After a quick tour of the big survey in the kitchen I was feeling confident and we got changed very early. In fact, an hour earlier than we should have been (I was just so excited). This is a very unusual event for a student caving club. I managed to convince the amazing Martin to take us to Peak early and we got in before 10am (a YUCPC record I imagine).

We wandered through the show cave and Martin unlocked all the gates for us - as we reached the slide Martin disappeared into the darkness and we bimbled onward. As we reached Buxton Water I realised that my survey did not have the entrance series on, I overconfidently decided that I totally remembered the entrance series from last year. Through the ducks we went and onwards to some scaffolding bits. Here I saw some more water and decided it was a sump. We proceeded to explore every single passage leading off of the entrance series. We saw the concrete plug, the 1947 series (both ends) and I stuck my head in a lot of holes. After becoming a little more desperate and cold due to going through the ducks a bajillion times we decided that me and Antje would scrub off, go back through the show cave, and then look at the survey right at the entrance.

As we wandered back through the cave we saw some light moving in the distance - it was our saviour!! Martin!! We told Martin that we were very lost (while not even being 5 mins into the cave) and he offered to be our tour guide and take us to the start of the round trip. We got an awesome tour and the way on was totally that duck that I thought was a sump. We were taken to the ladder before Martin disappeared for cave science reasons.

From the ladder all navigation was smooth as we were actually on the survey and we very much enjoyed the round trip - it truly has something for everyone (except SRT) and it was really very enjoyable. We stopped for some nice pictures along the way too. After we finished the round trip in just under 30 mins we decided to explore the other side of the Buxton Water sump and took some more pictures in the phreatic tubes.

We got out of Peak successfully (and had a lovely group scrub) around 1.30pm. Once changed we went and had some fantastic greasy food at the fish and chips and went for a nice walk. A good day in the Peak district!