JAC MEETS CHAMPION THE WONDER HORSE
(Or a brief encounter in Matienzo)
‘Jac the landrover had had a pleasant afternoon resting in Farmer Manuels field. He felt he deserved
an afternoon off for it had been a long, tiring journey to Fresnedo
from Matienzo and his little green oil light had
stayed on all the way. In fact, he’d felt quite hot and bothered under the
bonnet by the time he’d arrived and the boys and girls he was carrying never
once stopped to see if he was alright. Instead, as soon as they arrived, they
just took off all their clothes right in front of his headlights and ran off to
play in Cueva de Freanedo.
Of course, JAC was used to such treatment
and after a few hours he felt his old self again and even began to miss the
boys and girls. And when darkness began to fall he started to wish that they
would hurry back and fire up his little engine so that he could get warm again.
He didn’t have to wait long. Soon, he saw their lights bobbing across the field
and the next minute here they were, happy and smiling and covered from top to
toe in sticky, smelly mud. They must have had some really jolly fun, thought
JAC, as he listened to them chattering away:
‘Well bugger me, what a shitholel’
said the tall boy with the beard.
“I almost fell down that rift when you bastards left me behind!” said the Irish
“You’ve just been Fresnedoedl’
said the one called Pringle, waving an orange rubber glove in her face. As the
boys and girls went on with their mutual back-slapping and bum-baring,
JAC listened excitedly to every word.
Slowly he pieced together what had happened …….
The
entrance, it seemed, was a bramble covered gully in the middle of a field and,
once inside, there was an immediate delay as a stream of oaths flowed from
Candy’s mouth in the direction of her Petzl Ariane. Most unladylike, and
totally ineffectual toot. Continuing on one of her five spare torches (all
strapped to her helmet) she caught us up in a wide, low, mud lined tunnel. Lots of nice crawling in slime led to a little nice walking in
slime and lots more nice crawling in slime. Hang on a minute,
we hadn’t come all the way to
True to
form, on reaching an obvious large hole in the floor the way on was an easily
missed tight squeeze into plenty more squirming and grovelling
until a bit of respectable passage saw us on our way to a big cross rift. Here
began an interesting mud traverse who’s depths almost claimed the short arses in the party. Neil got a good ticking off from Ange for leaving her behind, but worse was to come when,
having just recovered from this knee trembler, the cry went up from in front -
“It’s a duck!” Yes folks, winter floods had left their mark by filling up a
normally dry tube with much agua. This seemed to
please Pringle no end, and he had to be forcibly restrained from wallowing in
this trough like some demented piglet. Soaked to the skin we now reached an
active inlet over flowstone and replenished watertanks
before climbing up into a large dry passage for a short romp to a rope. Out
came the SRT gear for a quick shin up 70ft into the upper levels.
An
interesting little incident with a moral now took place. As Neil prussiked up, there was some discussion as to how to get
the crowbar up safely. Ange didn’t want to spoil her
new tackle bag with sharp bits of metal, so Hugh tucked the crowbar into his
harness and set off up. All went well as far as the rebelay
where, in swapping ropes, he sat back on his cows tail. This manouevre swung him against a mudbank
and, yes you guessed it, out popped the bar! ‘BELOW!” Although the others had
retired to safe cover, the walls of the pitch conspired to deflect the missile
into ‘locked on” trajectory, whereupon it glanced off Ange’s
bum and impaled itself 9 inches into the sandbank between her and a surprised
Pringle! This speaks volumes about Ange’s bot, or maybe Hugh’s accuracy with the ‘arrers.
Lucky escape, though, and the moral is _don’t be a precious tart about your new
handbag! (alternatively, don’t give me any trackle to
carry!!)
We were
now up in the Knotted Rope extensions, so named after a rather unusual
formation. Apparently, the first explorers came across this phenomenon and
shouted to their companions a”Hey, someone’s been
here before, there’s a knotted rope hanging down!’ In fact, this is a long stal of rope thickness with a curiously frayed crystal end,
and it’s more like a knotted rope than the real thing! If it was Ease Gill,
some pillock would have tried to climb up it.
Not far
now to our objective, That Chamber, to look at some bolting and scaling leads.
Don’t ask me how to get there, but I think you follow Which
Passage to What Climb and then go down This Crawl into That Chamber (lots of
fun when other folk are asking how to find it!) Here we marvelled
at the open passages in the walls just waiting for a Bosch. Over in the other
corner of the chamber (i.e several hundred feet away
- it’s big!) were a couple of 30m pitches which I think Pete Hall has been down
(Pete?) and more avens than you could shake a scaling
pole at. Shocked by the variety of goodies on display, we sat down for some
jock and it was pronounced that Candy’s ‘Chocolat a
la Fresnedo Duck’ was preferred to Ange’s ‘Dates con Loctite”. A
quick look at Z dig, which didn’t seem worth the shovel work given the open
pickings in That Chamber, and then we were on our way out. At the top of What
Climb, Neil and Hugh explored an inlet crawl to a too-tight section with a good
echo - maybe going back into That Chamber or one of the open leads?
A retreat was
then made in good order and no more accidents with crowbars. The route out
seemed a lot shorter now it was all familiar territory and soon we were back
through the squeeze and into the slimey entrance
crawls to emerge
steaming through the brambles after an excellent 7 hour trip. Despite the mud, Fresnedo had won us over!
Now the
boys and girls had finished dressing and JAC felt the bump and crash of gear as
they loaded up the back and jumped in. His eyes shone brightly on the field as,
backfiring merrily, he made a sweeping turn into the track and bounced off
along the ruts. Suddenly JAC saw him. Twenty hands high was the horse, proud
and stately, glossy brown flanks gleaming In his headlamps, black eyes burning
into JAC as they faced each other In the narrow lane. JAC stood his ground,
heart beating nervously on a faulty tickover, his
little green oil light flashing furiously. What would happen? The horse
breathed steam from its nostrils, whinnied and pawed at the ground, majestic
and frightening in the moment before charging. Golly gumdrops, thought JAC,
wishing he’d had an MOT and a service. But it was too late now. He pulled
himself together, grated into first gear and revved up, wondering who had the
most horsepower.
But, just
as he was about to drop his clutch and jolt forward, the horse reared
into the air and leapt up the bank, laughing and tossing his mane, eyes
flashing, teeth smiling as he waved them by. And then JAC realised;
it was his old chum Champion the Wonder horse! - they hadn’t recognised each other in the dark! JAC tooted as he went by
and Champion waved his tail excitedly. And so the trip to Fresnedo
ended and they all lived happily ever after and all that horse shit. (Well,
you’ve got to fill up these newsletters somehow!)
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