Lancaster Hole - 31 Jan 2009

Saturday January 31st 2009

Members present: Alastair Gott,  Christina Cartaciano,  Chuck Holder,  Luke Brownbridge,  Marianna Wilde

First Cave
we descended on a coldish day, but i was amazed when i got down as to how warm it was, due to it being my first cave.
chuck and me got to the bottom and waited for a bit for everyone else to get down.
once all assembled we went up slug world that was pretty, then we proceeded to return to the main chamber and took the other passage on the pretence of finding the colonaids, i say pretence chuck mislaid the guide so we had to rely on his memory was it the first or second tunnel off to the left??, chuck was pretty sure it was the second so took a look and when he got to the end was not sure.
so chuck then went and had a gander at the first tunnel whilst luke took a quick look futher down the cave, it wasn't the first tunnel (definite).
so we all decided it must be the second chuck led I was second and christina was third, marianna and luke were up behind. by this time we had spent a couple of hours in the cave and marianna was tired, so we had to make sure she was alright and so went back to the entrance and sent her, christina and chuck up.
chuck came back down, and he made a third attempt at finding the colonaids, down the second tunnel.
at the end of this tunnel is a fixed rope which we all decended and found THE GRAVEYARD, just a brilliantly muddy section of a cave which is not really anywhere near the colonaids (they're down the third tunnel on the left) but fun except when your trying to get out because of the serious slippage on the hand-jammer from the mud.
we headed home disappointed about the colonaids but not disheartened.
only when someone told us there was a third tunnel to the left were we really disheartened so close but yet so far.

i learnt 3 things
1) MUD IS FUN
2) FORGETTING GUIDES IS NOT GOOD PRACTICE
3) ALWAYS TELL SOMEONE IF YOU ARE FEELING TIRED much better to TELL and GET OUT than to TRY to PUSH ON 'for the group' and GIVE UP further into the cave