It was my turn to accompany some cavers in the North-west passage
extensions today. We had arranged to meet in the Old Smithy café in
Monyash and as Karen and Keith were planning to spend some time
tidying up the club tackle store, they also had breakfast in the
café.
When we arrived, Tom and Owen were
already in the café: there were to be only the two of them today.
After breakfast, I left Karen and Keith in the café and set off
in my car for Derby Lane followed by Tom and Owen in their van. As it
had been very wet, we didn't drive to the end of the green lane but
stopped on a wide section where it was still rocky as otherwise the
wet soil and mud would have made it very difficult to get much
further.
We got changed and walked to the end of the lane and climbed over
the horse jump and then across the field to the shaft top.
Tom rigged the rope they had brought and I abseiled down first.
They had a 35 metre rope and it was just the right length.
Once we had finished our look at the new stuff, I prusiked up
first to open the shaft lid and found that it was just beginning to
rain. The consolation was there was a whole rainbow stretched across
the sky from the other side of Derby Lane to the upper part of
Lathkill Dale.
We walked back to the cars in the rain and had a very unpleasant
time getting changed and after saying good-bye to the others, I
headed for the Orpheus hit to find Karen and Keith just finishing off
their re-organisation of the tackle store while Boyd and Waggy were
teaching basic SRT to a couple of prospective members on the gable
end of the cottage.
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