Oxlow Cavern

Unusually for the Orpheus Caving Club barbecue week-end, the weather forecast was good!
We met Keith as usual in the café at Monyash for breakfast, then drove to the Orpheus Club cottage at Parsley Hay.
Keith was joining Pete Wagstaff, Ralph (Bell) Bellamy and Paul Thorne for a trip into the further reaches of Knotlow Cavern while Karen and I had a trip to Oxlow Cavern's East Chamber planned.
So between us the appropriate lengths of rope were sorted and packed into tackle bags and we set off for Oxlow Farm to park the car and get changed into caving gear.
As there were only the two of us, we had settled on a trip to East Chamber as this meant we could get all the ropes necessary into three tackle bags which was reasonably manageable between the two of us.
It was almost exactly noon as I finished attaching the rope to the anchors at the top of the entrance shaft and started to abseil down into the old mine.
We were both having a poke around East Chamber a little over an hour later and after a short “mars bar” break, we began the return journey to the surface again.
It was around 14:30 once we were both back on the surface and the ropes packed away.
Another visit to the café was called for and we sat outside in the fine weather as we ate and watched various motorbikes and some vintage cars come and go and pass by.

We had originally planned on returning later to the club cottage for the barbecue once we had sorted and packed away the ropes, but somehow, it just never happened. We had decided to just eat at home anyway, maybe lethargy had set in!