Pwll Dwfn, South Wales

Karen and I drove down to South Wales giving Jess E. a lift to arrive last night at Crai Bunkhouse. Boyd and Jenny were there along with Phil W., his niece Holly and his friend Robert. In the morning we waited for Keith S., Dave P. and James H. to arrive after we had cooked and eaten breakfast. Karen spotted a red deer stag on the horizon on high ground behind the bunkhouse and if you went outside, you could hear it roaring.
They all arrived by 10:00 am and Dave, Keith, Karen and I drove to Dan yr Ogof car park while Jenny went to the coast to go birdwatching and the rest joined Boyd for a trip into OFD via OFD1 and Cwm Dwr. We had seen a notice at the camp site car park entrance addressed to "Walkers" saying you must register at the show cave ticket office before parking or pay a fine, so we drove over to the show cave car park to check on whether we needed to register. The guy at the ticket office said we just had to go to the coffee shop and ask for a red dragon for each car and display these in the front window. The girls in the coffee shop wrote out camp site tickets and charged £3 per car... and no dragons! Anyway we went back to park at the camp site and we displayed the Welsh flag Karen hand copied and laminated in my car and the camp site tickets in both cars.
We changed into caving gear and walked up to Pwll Dwfn. Once at the entrance, Keith went in first so that he could do the SRT rigging followed by Dave, Karen and myself. As Dave dropped down the entrance two ponies, which had been grazing nearby, came over to investigate and then wandered off! We heard Keith saying that the pitches were already rigged, which seemed strange as it was only just 11:30 in the morning and we saw no other cars parked in the car park. Karen helped me down by placing my feet on footholds on the wall but by using these, I couldn't get down because my legs were too long and Karen used her hand to support a foot while I tried again with no luck. I had no trouble in the past and couldn't understand why I was having problems now until I stood on her back as she stooped and I just slipped through! That's what the problem was - on previous visits I had just poked my legs through and slid down the small slab and was soon standing on a boulder some 6 feet below.
Anyway, we followed Keith and Dave on downwards into the cave. At the third pitch we found the other party's rope was coiled at the top of the pitch so they were obviously not in the cave so perhaps were digging. Soon we all were at the bottom of the last pitch where there was a small diving bottle and some small items of gear and scaffolding and other gear at the sump. So somebody was digging down there and had left their ropes.
After having a look at the sump, which was very low, and the fossils in the wall at the bottom of the pitch, we started heading out with me in front. Karen and I waited for a tackle bag to be passed through (there had been one for each of us on the way down) and once one had arrived, I headed for the surface. At the entrance I poked the tackle bag up through the hole and took off my small personal bag and did the same with that. I then stood on the boulder and poked both arms and head and chest through the hole and stood on a cup-shaped foothold on the wall behind and stood on that leg. I then walked both feet up the wall behind and just slid up the slab and was soon up. It had just gone about 10 past three (so we had been about three and half hours underground). I waited for Karen to arrive and suggested she did the same and she also was soon up. We waited for Dave to arrive and then passed the remaining gear out and I chucked them onto the grass behind me.
We walked back to the car and got changed. It had been overcast all day and luckily just as we had finished changing light rain started to fall. We relocated the cars to the show cave car park and went into the cafe for some cakes and coffee or tea. Afterwards we returned to the bunkhouse for more tea and wait until 7:00 pm before driving to "The Lion" up the road in Deffynog which Boyd had rung up during the day to book a meal for us (except Robert, Holly and Phil who ate at the Bunkhouse). The food was good and very reasonably priced. Afterwards we had a few drinks and returned to the Bunkhouse and eventually went to be just before 11:00 pm.