The guys had visited me all the way from Denmark to see Britol Rovers play againt Oldham saturday the 21th of February. That in itself was of course pretty big, but having arrived already thursday night we were looking for something to do friday.
So I suggested going caving and although it created a lot of uneayness the team seemed up for it. I arranged 4 sets of gear from good old Sparrow and we headed out to the Mendips friday noon.
My initial idea was to go down Sidcott Swallet, because I had been so many times in the two obvious introduction caves Goatchurch and Swildons. So we headed down Sidcot's quite intimidating entrance and after a short while I realized that with me having to find new ground (okay not completely new but it had been 5 years since I had been down there with Fred), and the with layout of the cave being quite technical with some fairly dangerous areas, I decided to go up again and go for a nice and enjoyable classic - Goatchurch Cavern.
Klammer went cold a couple of times until we reached the start of the drainpipe where he had had enough and refused to squeeze in. Frede went first and having never caved before this was a pretty impressive move. After the occassional swearing about when and if this bloody tube would end, and if I was sure that this was the right place Frede found his way through. Then Kettle followed.
The drainpipe is at the very bottom of Goatchurch and is a bit of a final test to sort the men from the mice. It is 40 ft of continuously wiggeling and it quite strenuous and very claustrophobic. I knew that Kettle has more or less all the phobism's that you can have and I was very impressed that he had made it this far at all. But Kettle was completely cool and despite all odds he just went for the drainpipe and started the scary and tiring wiggeling. I went directly after him and left Klammer, who was not going to do it, behind.
Inside the chamber after the pipe there was many a loud eyyds and Frede and Kettle had a long awaited fag.
Having done the main feature of the cave we decided to head back and eventually we went for the pub. We even had a meal at the local Burrington, not the best stuff around - Klammer threw the whole thing up outside and then had a stomach situation the whole weekend afterwards. Bummer. In addition, he had nasty nightmares about the wonderful world of caving confirming his absolute preference for wide open spaces.
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