Water Icicle Close Cavern

Pete Collins had been on a rope access course in Rotherham all week and asked if he could stay with us on Friday night. It was planned for the three of us to be joined by Keith and Simon Brooks in the morning to visit the new extensions in Water Icicle Close Cavern to survey and take photos.
Keith arrived at our place in the morning at 08:15 as arranged and after a quick coffee or teas we drove to Monyash to have breakfast as usual at the café. Simon was already waiting outside in his car and we arrived just as the café was opening at 09:00.
Steve Tucker and Phil Gregson from OCC also turned up and we said “hello”. After breakfast we drove up Derby Lane as far as we could due to the track conditions and parked and got changed into caving gear. We dropped down the entrance shaft and headed for the ladder up to the dig at the end of North-West Passage. On the way, Simon paused to check that the Leica Disto electronic survey unit was calibrated correctly by comparing its readings to a compass when taking a bearing on a rock in the passage.
Keith had tied on a short length of rope at the top and Karen tied a loop in it so that I could clip in my cowstails (which I had brought when leaving my SRT kit at the foot of the entrance shaft) as I wasn't happy at the top of the ladder (an old aluminium builders ladder which Pete had found at a tip!) as it didn't quite reach the top and the rings were very close to the rock when I was at the top. I soon got off at the top and, as I expected, it wasn't too bad after all.
While Simon sorted out his gear to get ready for the survey, Karen and I followed Keith and Pete down the short section of scaffolding into last week's breakthrough point. Soon we were into large passage similar to the old section before the aven at the old bit of North-West Passage, and a junction with a large chamber, with a large aven above and, not only the large passage continuing on with come changes of direction – a side passage of reasonable size as well. There was also a small widening in the main passage with a gap between boulders down which could be seen water some 15 or so metres below.
Karen started laying out red and white tape to mark a pathway along the floor to avoid mud formations and calcite formations while Pete took me on a guided tour. It was certainly an impressive find. Once we had reached the ends of the new passages, both ending in boulder chokes, Simon started surveying assisted by Karen and Keith while Pete and I had a look at the the boulder choke at the end of the side passage.
Pete began prodding and poking boulders above the slope of small rocks and dried mud about 2 metres long, in an aven above and brought down a few at a time which we moved to one side to both keep the approach free but also to keep the way free to allow Pete to quickly take avoiding action!
It got to the point where we could see what looked like a solid wall opposite matching the solid wall on ours side with a widening aven wither side with some empty space and quite a lot of boulders – most looking very precarious.
After removing some more boulders including a particularly large one which lodged itself on the slope, Pete knocked another boulder and there was a large rumbling followed by a lot of boulders dropping down and Pete moving fast out of the way nearly knocking me over – exciting stuff!
Cautiously peering up the aven after this, we saw clear empty space for about 7 metres, with more jammed boulders above – hopefully they will remain there for now.
After we had been at this for a while, with Pete complaining about getting knackered, we returned to the junction to find the others. They had just finished surveying the larger passage (named Urchin Passage after some small calcite formations on the floor which are easily missed) and we told them about what we had been up to. We returned to the boulder prodding location with Keith while Simon and Karen also followed surveying as they went.
Next came the photography. Simon took a number of photos with mainly Keith or Pete in frame while Karen or I held the slave flash out of view (which was attached to a “Firefly 3”). Once the photos were completed, Karen and I made our way back through the initial dig site and back to the foot of the entrance shaft while the others followed, pausing to block the dig with scaffolding. After getting our SRT kit back on, I prusiked up and opened the shaft lid which I had closed on the way in. It was around 16:30, dusk, and the pink glow of what had been probably been a lovely sunset was still apparent in the Western sky. I waited for Karen to resurface and then we walked back down Derby Lane to the car to get changed out of caving gear.
Once changed, we returned to Winster and home to have a shower and wait for Keith and Pete to turn up. After coffee or tea we drove to the OCC hut for the OCC Christmas Dinner at 19:00. After the usual very good meal, we helped with the tidying up and returned home for the night. We found out the next day that Karen had left her camera on the temporary dining table and it had been chucked on a bonfire outside with the rest of the rubbish! Luckily it was found next morning by Mick Chambers and Karen recovered it to find it was still working perfectly despite some minor burning and charring!