After a bit of a noisy night (a group celebrating someone's 21st birthday was staying in the adjoining bunkhouse) we were all up at about half past eight. After a bit of breakfast, Karen, Pete and I moved on to Bernies for a second course (!) while Boyd went walking, Jenny caught up with some work at the bunkhouse and Dave headed off for a day of DIY involving a shed roof. We had a break from Bernies by driving around to Kingsdale with the plan of following the Roof Traverse route in Yordas Pot. Karen and I were in my car and we followed after Pete and found him parked in a layby which we though was not the right one for Yordas Cave so we asked him what was he parking there for and continued on down the road. After 100 yards, we realised that Pete was in the right layby after all, so I sheepishly did a three point turn and parked in front of his car. We were at least now pointing in the correct direction so that we could shelter from the rain at the back of the car!
We were soon changed and made our way up to the two middle entrances in the gully which soon join a short distance inside and join the route part way between the foot of Yordas Pot and the streamway leading to the top of Chapter House Waterfall in Yordas cave,
When we reached the point where the stream cascades down the two large steps of the Waterfall, Pete started rigging following the line of resin bolts leading along the roof and Karen and I followed behind. After a short traverse, Pete abseiled down 3 or so metres to join the bolts continuing at a lower level and again made another short abseil to swing across to a line of bolts on the opposite wall. We could see a group of cavers below looking up at the waterfall, having entered the large impressive chamber of Yordas Cave. There was then another short traverse leading to a Y hang and then a final, longer abseil with a long reach needed to get to the deviation, which dropped down to the pool at the bottom of the Waterfall and the narrow connection with Yordas Cave. Karen headed out via Yordas Cave to the surface while I headed back up from the final traverse followed by Pete who began de-rigging. Once the rope (45 metres is about right for this route) was dealt with, we headed back to the two short pitched leading back to the middle entrance, where we met a small group of cavers who were on their way in to have a look at the route we had just followed.
We returned to the car, thankfully with a break in the rain, and after changing returned to Bernies for more delights.
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