Lost John's Cave - 18 Feb 2006

Saturday February 18th 2006

Members present: Adrian Turner,  Audrey Teo,  Chuck Holder,  David Sproson,  Emma Welsh,  Gary Douthwaite,  John Singleton,  John Camplin,  Matt Ewles,  Nicola Gover,  Richard Gover

Aw no-one has written a report for poor old lost john's, so I took it upon myself to do so! well, as my 2nd ever cave I was a little apprehensive, especially as debbie wasn't there to hold my hand (not literally gover ;) ) and tell me what to take, etc. but it was really fun! I realised I had an oversuit with a huge slit in a very unfortunate place, which was a source of much humour before we'd even set off- if anyone takes it btw I'll be upset- it's MY crappy oversuit now! I've extended the damage!
Anyways, the caving was good, and there was a challenge for me in the form of the valhalla/battleaxe thingie which was without a doubt the scariest thing I've seen, but I was determined to do it because of my stubbornness (and also because I figured I'd not gone through the hassle of putting bloody caving gear on to go down for 3 hours..) I clung to the wall for dear life and made poor old Ade go at a snail's pace behind me while I repeated my 'hating heights' mantra complete with lots of swearing in it :o (WHY am i doing this again??) at the end also I was gutted when I realised that we had to go back accross it to get out! I figured we were going out another exit! :(
The scariest part was the 60 pitch back up centipede which I REALLY didn't like and would rather have let us miss our call out and get pulled out by cave rescue.. I actually choked back tears on the way up, for real, and felt like a right loser when I realised that the old fart with us had taken 10 minutes and I'd taken 35... oh well! All in all, it was a really energetic and action packed nearly 9 hours of a 2nd cave and I had my first dose of outdoors change-which was not pleasant! I think I got mud all over the car seat when I decided to change not so sneakily inside out of my stuff!
:p Oh, also, NEVER wear normal socks under wet ones- it doesn't work the way you may think it would.... I've now learned from my mistake! Em xxx