Lovely trip up to Yorkshire for the fireworks weekend; lots of rain had fallen over the previous week so we were rather restricted in our choice of cave. Gaping Ghyll, Easegill, Tatham Wife & Bull Pot were all knocked off over the weekend though!

Lovely weekend away in the Brecon Beacons, South Wales. Early start on Saturday followed by two enormous trips down the Ogof Flynnon Ddu cave system, followed by an exciting scramble through the Little Neath river cave on Sunday.

Storming day trip to the Mendips, 18 people down Swildons hole. Most of the freshers did sump 1 & explored beyond, everyone out by 6pm in time for tea!

With the help of the National Express & B.Ogbourne's Tardis golf, six of us made it down to the national caving conference being held in a school Churchill, Somerset. Rik gave a light-hearted talk about our discoveries in Slovenia this summer; many other presentations & videos were viewed, and some truly awful dancing enjoyed.

For those that missed out on the true joy of exploring Captain Kangaroo deep within mountain Migovec this summer; Richard Venn has recorded his pushin' song, set to the tune of Flowers on the wall by the mighty Statler Brothers. You may have come across it on the Pulp Fiction soundtrack, or on the Underground Camp 2004 mix-tapes...

ICCC is back from their Slovenia 2005 Expedition. Captain Kangaroo, a window off the impressive Pico pitch at -150m in Gardener's World was pushed for over 200m of passage, currently ending at a squeeze before a large pitch. Though we believe this to be Concorde Pitch, there are still going leads. KK also exhibits the first clear evidence of seismic activity in the caves of Migovec - large cracks are evident in the wall of the tight but extremely interesting rift-way.

A lot of time was spent developing entrances in a new caving area, Area K. Over 15 entrances were logged, all of which offer scope for further cave development - though most require a degree of digging. Most impressive were K9 and K12/K13. K9 is a ~15m pitch into a small chamber that connects directly to a parallel shaft. From the bottom of the parallel shaft, an extensive and multiple level boulder choke exists that continues West. K12 [Victoria Coach Station] is an impressive snow-sloped cave, with a beautiful dome ~50m across with up to a ~20m high ceiling. There is an extremely drafty bedding plane dig in the north of the cave. K13 is a small passage entered on the hill above K12, it drops into a antechamber [The Arrivals Hall] above K12, which can then be descended into through a 1m across hole in the floor.

Much to type up & many stories to tell - expect a full load of information over the next couple of weeks, but for now relish the fantastic Photos!

Expo 2005 Newsletters
Expedition Updates + News
Expedition Logbook [VERY INCOMPLETE]

Hardcore trip to Yorkshire with the Clew-mobile. Successful Rift / Large (Marble Steps) exchange... just.
GI Jo + The Clewster zoomed down the rather inaptly/ineptly namedLarge, appearing out of the tiny slot in the main Rift chamber just asTall + Deep prepared to leave at their allotted fail safe time, aftera romantic candlelit dinner. Jo & Co zoomed out Rift into a cloud of midges, slow taxing escape from Large was rather more sordid - bursting into the moonlight at 23:20, absolutely caked in mud...

Sunday saw Jo rig Jingling by throwing Maillons down the pitch, and an obscene quantity of both Tea and Gear bought from Bernie's in order to equip the summer expedition.
Trip Report, Photos.

Absolutely Brillo weekend down Bullpot. Shed was woken up at 4am by a poor CUCC lass dry retching in her sleeping bag after drinking a mite too much Absinthe. Fresher bimble from County to Wretched Rabbit in Easegill, big exchange up on the Allotment and then shopping at Bernie's and pull throughs in Swinstow/Simpsons on the Sunday. Shed had a little difficulty passing the Letterbox, allowing time for the two parties to meet up in the main chamber below and entertain themselves with camera flashes; before a storming zoom out of Valley Entrance to achieve our call-out.
Changing in the afternoon sun was lovely; anyone who says that caving is better in the winter should be taken outside and shot in the snow!

We were too busy caving to vote on the awards during the AGM, so the day-of-voting has been postponed to our LAST EVER SOUTHSIDE SESSION - JUNE 22ND! The race is still open, last minute moments of appaling behaviour could capture you one of these lovely prizes...

The "For Evans Sake's" Award [Most creative use of bodily fluid]: Currently Rik Venn is in the lead with his terrifying Malt Loaf wrapper story from August 2004 in Slovenia.

The "Herman Hertz" Award [For near-death experience while caving]: Sandeep is racing ahead of the pack currently with multiple nominations including: Not buckling his harness before doing an Alpine SRT cave & his impression of an icicle during the Christmas tour.

The anonymous Geeks against Revision subsection of the caving club have been successfully misdirecting their efforts into playing with our Slovenia surveys & some Digital Elevation Model data of the Mountain range where we have our yearly summer expedition to. See a few pretty pictures here. By 2006, we hope to have a fully immersive VR model of the mountains filled in from Low Earth Orbit using ground penetrating radar, allowing us to conduct our expeditions from the safety, comfort and convenience of our armchairs. Note the two comparative photos on the left, comparing the inferior 2004 photo by the Tents to what is possible with the latest in 1980's video game technology! No more smelly cavers working at the limit of endurance, battling abrasive rock and unthinkable heights with Nylon rope & tiny slivers of Steel, gazing keenly in the dim unknown; just a cool, melodious stream of bits floating in over the ether...