Long Churn - 23 Oct 2005

Sunday October 23rd 2005

Members present: Adrian Turner,  Audrey Teo,  Chuck Holder,  David Cox,  Debbie Flowers,  Gary Douthwaite,  Israel Bontempelli,  Kevin Francis,  Oliver Bunting,  Simon Ko

[essay begins]
<br><br>on a damp saturday morning, many cavers pile into two cars and a minibus and head off to the dales. Whilst passing through gargrave, someone noticed a smell of something burning. Praying it wasn't the minibus, we told matt to stick his head out the window to check it was coming from outside. It wasn't. We pulled into the car-park for the Anchor Inn and the minibus emptied as plumes of smoke bellowed from the front left wheel. Realising the brake pads were knackered, we phoned the minibus assistance/towing helpline in the vague hope that they might be able to replace the break pads. As it turns out anything to do with the brakes needs to be seen to in a garage. It also transpired that the assistance policy the SU had taken out on it's vehicles had expired three days earlier. Due to this the assistance group would not tow us back to york. They said they could call out someone to have a look at it, but at £88 a shot and seeing as they could not do anything about the break it was decided not to bother. Fortunately the lady on the helpline found a company nearby who could tow the minibus back to York. That saw the first ever usage of my credit card to the value of £190 +VAT :).
<br><br>By this point we had called Ollie and Gary back to come & pick up some more people (having previously only had three people in one car & four in the other). Unfortunately this meant that only another four freshers could go caving. After names being picked out of hat by a bar lady decided it, Andy V, Raphael, George, Mudd, and Mariam went back to York in the cab on the transporter.
<br><br>Ollie & Gary arrive and Nikki, Gover, and Dom bug out, leaving space for me, Kevin, Audrey, Simon, Israel and David. We all head of to Long Churn leaving the other seven to sort out transport back to york (we eventually found out that they had decided a £110 taxi would be cheaper than taxi to skipton & train to york).
<br><br>We got to the car park for long churn which was packed with minibuses, forcing us to go a long way up the track. Ollie managed to ground his car while trying to park, and Gary's car made a nice clunk sound while going down the track.
<br><br>The caving in comparison was relatively uneventful. There was a moderate amount of water down there, but no where near as much as I have seen going down it. Everyone seemed to have a good time, and we actually had quite an efficient trip underground.
<br><br>We stopped off at bodrums for pizza & burgers, and after beguiling everyone with stories of why joining the climbing club is dangerous for your liver, left for home. On the way back to the car, Israel tripped over and hit her arm. After realising she was in quite a bit of pain, Ollie called over to other car asking if we knew where A&E was in harrogate. After getting directions, we found A&E and several people found the coffee machine inside it. After a little while we decided that two cars weren't required, so one went home. The rest of us waited a little longer for a doped up Israel to emerge.
<br><br>We finally managed to get back home without any more incidents occuring. I slept very well saturday night :).