RRCPC Newsletter
Volume 46 Number 2 Article 5
April 2009
Sat 7th Feb 2009
Ray Duffy
Meeting at the car park at Cowan Bridge seemed a good idea of Bills, our leader for the day. However, he hadn’t turned up at the appointed time, Andy Hall was late so there was me, Dave and Andrew (guest) twiddling our whatevers. We changed over to Andrews motor and Andy Halls for the drive up. Changing was nice as the air though cold was dry for a change on Leck Fell, but Dave had forgotten his oversuit so the Bernies bag had to be put into action with a pair of lightweight overtrousers. I’d not been down Notts for years so I was surprised with the amount of filler work Andy Walsh had done, I nearly didn’t fit it’s so snug. You tend to forget there’s about a hundred foot drop down the second shaft. We regrouped at the foot of Mincemeat Aven for some photos of clastic sediments. I had to take several shots because of course Horrible had to pull stupid, sorry, more stupid faces at the camera, in an attempt to ruin the shot, childish!!!!
When we reached the main streamway we set off downstream toward the sump. Not being in a rush to survey, dig etc. etc. we had time to notice all the formations and the fantastic coral fossils in the walls. A few posing shots at Kleine Scheidegg cascade and it was back romping upstream to photo the pretties. Dave had got himself lost up some inlet, Green Tape I think, so we left him to it, with Bill in attendance. I managed to get some nice shot of the large stals on the way up the main streamway and we all got back together to have a look up Estonia. Remarkably pretty little chamber considering the pooey crawl to get to it.
The damp bit further upstream wasn’t as bad as I remembered though it did bring lumps to the throat at one point. I needed some photos of Curry Inlet so that’s where we headed. Some dingbat seemed to have felt their way up the passage by Braille so I spent a good half an hour spraying the mud of the walls in an attempt to save it becoming calcified. Our return was uneventful until the children decided to bombard the entrance with snowballs as me and Andy were exiting, tish! More fun ensued when Andy’s car keys went missing and him and Bill were left wet and cold until said items returned, tish, tish! It’s good to see that childish pranks still abound in the Red Rose psyche.