5th May 2024 – A trip down Swildon’s

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We woke up relatively early at Wookey Farm Campsite, mostly at 8ish due to Alex Midgely waking us. We ate our own breakfasts next to the remains of the previous nights fire. I had a handful of nuts, but Emily Crossley’s insistence that it wouldn’t be enough convinced me to eat my noodles. After a proper amount of faff, we headed to the caves, leaving at 10:15. Nem had consistently been “joking” about not wanting to cave. Nonetheless, she did.

Becca, Nem, Claudia, Carla and I went down to Swildon’s with Carla to be the leader with her brand new laminated surveys. Both sets of car keys went to Keymaster Becca, who had a waterproof case. By this point, the weather was giving us a slight drizzle, so we were very pleased to have gone to the beach and Cheddar Gorge the day before.

As we approached the cave, I noticed a few brackets on the dead tree entrance, as well as some Prince Alfred’s Cakes, which Nem said would make excellent firelighters. Due to the rain, I wasn’t sure how likely a fire would be that evening.

The general order of things in the cave was Carla and Nem leading, Becca and I seconding and Claudia in the middle. After all, it was her first cave!

The moment Nem took charge, we went the wrong way. Ironically I cannot recall the exact location, but we missed the ladder climb, whose name escapes me. But in the crawl section we went down instead, Becca and I saw many mouse droppings, but no mouse. Alas, I shudder to think how a mouse would interact with such cold darkness. When we came back to the ladder, at least from my perspective, navigation was smooth as all we had to do was follow the water. There were several climbs in addition to the pitch. One of them sent Nem, and later I, shrieking as water entered one of our sleeves and went straight into our oversuits without even the decency of giving us some warning. Claudia had a lot of fun with these climbs, either jumping or falling a small height into the water below, something Nem laughed about but encouraged her not to do.

When we came to the first break, before all that climbing (memory isn’t always linear, so neither is this), Nem took some time for a geography lesson, teaching Claudia the basics of cave formations and conservation. After she was done, Becca corrected her by stating it was geology, not geography.

Back to the pitch, and then climbs, the water levels were higher than normal but by no means dangerous. We made our way swiftly to the first sump, which surprised us. It appears we didn’t really know where we were on the survey. According to Carla, we should only have been half way. As someone who’s often at the butt of these jokes I found this very funny.

I had admitted I hadn’t been down th esump before, so naturally I was volunteered to go in. Carla was also enthusiastic and tested it by sticking her legs through. Becca and I were worried we’d get too cold on the way back but after some deliberation we also agreed to go. Claudia also wanted to go, glasses in hand, but was having difficulty with it and wanted to see someon else do it first. So after Carla, I went. By god it was a shock! In that it wasn’t. The shocking side of things was that it wasn’t as shockingly code and chilling as I thought it would be. I was pleasantly surprised by how unphased I was (well, I was somewhat phased, but less so than I though I would have been). After I came through, so did Becca.

Carla, Becca and I agreed to run back to the entrance to avoid an icy death, whilst Nem and Claudia came back together and derigged the pitch. By jolly we were fast! It was straightforward to the pitch, where we saw lights and a ladder. I ascended quickly after saying I was coming up and managed a wet, short ascent of the pitch, coming to find members of Plymouth. After a nice chat, we moved on, though Carla stayed back at the pitch to assist Claudia with her ascent when she arrived.

Becca and I came to the entrance soon after. At the entrance, I saw many new cavers. They seemed to be tourists coming through companies. We navigated past them and came out through the dead tree. At Becca’s behest, we went back through the tree and came out the regular way so we could say we’d been in and out both ways. After this, we found it was only 2:30pm. From the first sump to the entrance, it took Becca and I only 45 minutes.

Thus ended my personal account of the trip. As I write, I overhear the others recollecting the chaos of Nem helping Claudia ascend by keeping the other ropes and ladder aside, giving a gremlin-like “Yeh!” upon Claudia reaching the top, as her assistance led to her being in the waterfall.