South Wales 2015
Friday, 23 January 2015 – Sunday, 25 January 2015
After one and a half hours of waiting for Shannon and a detour to pick Ann up from Birmingham, we eventually made it to the very cosy westminister at 12:30am. The party was already in full swing, Cardiff was playing beer pong and the other ULSA bus had already arrived.
Rob was already quite drunk and was attempting to make out with Hedge Alex, seizing the opportunity I walked over to replace Alex for a bit (sorry Nadia). Unfortunately it wasn’t as good as I expected, making out with drunk Rob is like being attacked by an exited slobbery dog.
About an hour later we couldnt decide whether or not Rob was alive, his eyes were half open but he was completely unresponsive. Apparently he had passed out after drinking too much of Carolines vodka. Nat, hedge Alex, Peachy and I knew exactly how to handle the situation properly, in fact you should take note as looking after drunk Rob is an important ULSA skill!
Picking up Robs body, we left the hut and headed towards Tom Connellys car, in an attempt to lift him onto the roof we smashed his head into the tail lights (possibly causing him to lose his glasses), feeling guilty we put him down and left Matilda and Caroline to look after him outside on the cold foor.
After a few minutes there was debate over whether or not to let him back into the hut as wherever we left him was likely to become saturated in his bodily fluids, we voted in favour of clearing a place on the kitchen floor for him and putting him there.
With Rob sprawled out on Kristians roll mat on the kitchen floor, peachy and some other people decided the best way to help would be to throw a water on him. Later a few eggs were smashed on his face and an attempt was made by me and Nat to piss on him but we only managed a few drops as Nat felt bad and I just didn’t need a piss.
At about 4-5am, Rob was still in the exact Sam Allshorne position; probably hypothermic, saturated in water, eggs and piss, making strange noises and attempting to get up. Rachel and Clara decided to take over the task of looking after Rob: changing him into dry clothes; a caving Oversuit, then laying him down on top of some cardboard. The task of looking after rob and ensuring he didnt choke on his own vomit was fulfilled by me and Nat, however deciding rob was probably fine we went to bed.
The next morning rob looked ill and had lost his glasses but he was still high spirited as he was wearing a pair of Carolines panties, unfortunately this meant he could not go caving and spent the entire day recovering from the previous night.
Saturdays trip organisation didnt go as planned, with John out of action due to illness and Lincoln out of action due to alcohol we only had one minibus. Meaning Matt had to spend pretty much all day driving everyone around to different places, instead of going caving. We did our best to organise ourselves and managed to get everyone out to the caves.
It seems LUCaS is cursed by south wales, we somehow managed to leave the key in the minibus, only realizing after Matt drove off. As no one had a phone, we were left with no choice but to hang around for a few hours, waiting for Matt to come back. Instead the day consisted of a nice walk around the hill.
Shortly after arriving back we headed over to the other hut where sniffer was preparing an amazing 3 course meal, the desert being the best part, some kind of creamy chocolate and coffee trifle nom nom nom.
Afterwards the freshers were discussing how they were planning to move the club forward in the coming years, it seemed the consensus was that, there was not enough corruption within the club , we need to be more like an evil, prioritising exploitation and profit. I was very impressed by the imaginative controversial ways in which they had for obtaining club funds.
Back at the hut, Shannon and Tilly had prepared an awesome cake for me and Abbie, seeing as it was our birthday at 12am. It was centred on the design of a cave with an icing version of me wearing a tackle sack as a helmet and Abbie with a big knife through her chest (an artistic modification made by me).
While eating the cake mesh asked me for some relationship advice, regarding his recent breakup with his girlfriend, unfortunately his problem seemed quite trivial. I couldnt quite understand why he was upset and I suggested he just get a new girlfriend, or just give her scabies.
The next morning we swiftly packed up and left for the caves, john and his minibus going to Darren, Matts minibus was headed to OFD in the opposite direction. Unfortunately matt had left his caving kit in the Johns minibus and only realised as we were just about to turn in opposite directions.
Deciding at this point it wouldnt be too difficult to chase after them we followed john and tried to get his attention. This was more difficult than we thought it would be: tailgating, beeping, flashing and indicating behind him, we were still unable to get his attention for a good few minutes. We eventually managed to get hold of someone in the other minibus on the phone, we stopped to pick up Matts bag and turned back to OFD.
OFD is probably my favourite south wales cave so far, I found the gate especially appealing with its solid construction and expensive looking padlock. Our aim was to do a bounce trip to the main drain, however inevitably had some route finding issues, Kristian said he had been to the cave before led the trip briefly and kept saying, “this is new. We later found that Kristian didnt know where he was going and was just heading in a random direction, mike and Matt took over route finding.
The reminder of the trip was pretty fun lots of, rift climbing and scrambling. We made it to the top of a ladder climb, a small waterfall was running down the ladder, it was insisted that the waterfall be dammed by someone sitting in a pool before the ladder in order for it to be passable. Turns out this was a practical joke and that when someone reached the bottom of the ladder the water was released drenching the person at the bottom of the pitch.
OFD main drain is one of the best stream ways Ive ever been to, unfortunately there was an awkward climb down into the river, meaning it may have been necessary to use a rope for shorter cavers and it was also time to turn back when we arrived. Matt and I headed down it for about 10minuets while the rest of the group where going up the ladder.
We left the cave surprisingly early and were getting changed by about 5pm. Nat, Luke and I changed outside in the rain, with the sound of Doctor Jones playing out of my waterproof speakers on the top of the minibus, everyone else got changed in the warm changing rooms.
After an overall good weekend/birthday we made it back to Leeds saying our final farewells to Pabwell.
Big thanks to Matt and John for driving and Sniffer for cooking an awesome meal!
Images
‘he’s fine’
Posted by: Brendan Hall
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Posted: 18 April 2015