Mallorca Easter Tour
Ben Richards, James Perry, Chris Hayes, Wojtek Sowinski, Julien Jean, Edwin Fernando, Thurston Blount, Jackie Li, Aurelia Eberhard, Lamya Adam, Leonie Siepmann, Thomas Pearson, Dylan Douglas-Dufresne, Kai Vice, Sam Barber
Saturday 21st
What a tragedy. Getting all our kit to Mallorca was challenging, to say the least. Rolling, dragging, fireman carrying, and all other sorts of configurations of carrying 25 kilo kit bags were tried, and an abundance of rips were present. We somehow got to Gatwick, where we were able to bid farewell to those awful kit bags. Thurston's bag got stopped due to having 20 batteries, to which I say skill issue (one got thrown away because it looked quite old).
Arriving in Mallorca, it was already dark. Getting to the cars was a bit of a faff. While loading the kit bags in the van that drove us to the rental place, an old sailor started talking to us. He mentioned how they'd stopped using those kit bags years ago, because of how awful they were. Good for them I guess. We have to keep using them for years :(
Once we got to the Air bnb, we were all shocked at just how incredible it was — a hot tub, a pool, a koi pond, two kitchens, and two buildings. Truly incredible.
Kai
Sunday 22nd
A chill start to the trip — we went to do some sightseeing in Mallorca, visiting a town, stickfighting, a lighthouse, and a couple places in between. The dinner situation was a herald of what was to come; frantically searching which shops closed last, and eating between 2200 and midnight. The infamous pallela was had tonight, where Thurston proceeded to shout orders from the table. It was... food. Edible? I question it. Have I eaten worse? Despite my track record of producing... interesting... foods, this perhaps takes the cake: overcooked, soggy rice, fish bones, and an aroma of ash.
Kai
Monday 23rd
S'Aigo: James Perry, Chris Hayes, Wojtek Sowinski, Edwin Fernando, Jackie Li, Aurelia Eberhard, Lamya Adam
No reports as of yet
Avenc de Fra Rafel: Julien Jean, Thurston Blount, Leonie Siepmann, Thomas Pearson, Dylan Douglas-Dufresne, Kai Vice, Sam Barber
The first cave! My first mediterranean cave as well. To my recollection, we spent around two hours between looking for the cave and trying to rig it. Thurston started to rig it one way, before changing his mind, undoing all the rigging, and rigging somewhere else. I was not paying attention to what was going on, so I just chilled with Julien. We made sure the rope wouldn't fray by putting some grass over the sharp edges of the rock. It came off the second the rope was loaded, unfortunately.
The pitch was a descent with a swing into the window. I haven't done SRT in a while, and dangling above an 80 metre pitch was slightly unnerving. Maybe it's also got to do with the fact that it's quite uncommon to be able to see every feature of a pitch; in daylight, I think caving would be scarier. Maybe not though, I have recently found out I am scared of the dark.
Musings aside, after I swung into the main chamber, I ended up waiting for the second half of the group to arrive; Thurston, Thomas, and Dylan went off ahead. I got to see some pretty incredible formations, waiting for the others. The first chamber, with quite a... fascinating? name, was massive. It sloped down into some narrow abyss, and had these high, vaulted ceilings with the best formations I've ever seen (in my very, very, long career of caving).
Thomas, Julien, and I went down one way when the others were faffing about, and we ended up at the Saddle (or something along those lines, I don't really remember). It was above this 100 metre pitch (roughly?), and the way to get across was to have one leg on either side of this rock with a ridge, and scoot yourself across. I decided against crossing. (fear of heights, and all that). It was so warm in the cave, even after we left the terrible air by the saddle.
Going to the last chamber required us to climb this somewhat steep slope, which I was shocked by how unfit I was. Turns out I'm not unfit (or maybe I am?), but it was simply my first experience of prolonged exposure to bad air. Dylan, Thurston, and I took some photos as we headed out of the cave last.
On the walk back, I found myself pondering the nature of this sport. We start by changing into some fairly repulsive kit, and carry barely any water for a fairly long excursion. Then, we proceed with a hike that to many, would be acceptable as a day's work. Only then do we get to see the light at the end of the tunnel, or perhaps more aptly, the dark at the end of the tunnel. And then on top of caving (essentially aid climbing), we get to do it all again. Do I love this? Do I hate this? Time will tell.
Kai
Tuesday 24th
Mitjana: James Perry, Chris Hayes, Julien Jean, Edwin Fernando, Thurston Blount, Jackie Li, Aurelia Eberhard, Lamya Adam, Thomas Pearson, Dylan Douglas-Dufresne
*No reports as of yet
Wednesday 25th
Sa Campana: Chris Hayes, Edwin Fernando, Jackie Li, Leonie Siepmann, Sam Barber
No reports as of yet
Cova des Diners: James Perry, Wojtek Sowinski, Julien Jean, Thurston Blount, Aurelia Eberhard, Lamya Adam, Thomas Pearson, Dylan Douglas-Dufresne, Kai Vice
The day started off in quite a lovely fashion: fearing for my life while above the ground. This is quite typical for me (terrified of heights), but perhaps this time it felt more real. Seeing the rubble of the building around me definitley made me feel like the floor could fall out from under me at any time. After we'd ex-ed our last ur, we managed to find a cave, apparently an aesthetic V. We decided to not change (questionable), and entered from this gate at the end of a cul-de-sac. I associate cul-de-sacs with rich neighborhoods, though I suppose an aesthetic V cave could be considered such.
This was yet another aesthetic V that I failed to see, after I decided to turn around from Mitjana... I was quite sad with this one, as I was told to turn around, and actually did, despite my best interests. Needless to say, I was very sad that I was so close, yet so far from the infamous aesthetic V. This only spurred my determination further. It was here that I decided that I was going to see an aesthetic V cave or simply not leave Mallorca.
Once we all got out of the cave, we drove to the top of a hill to watch a (very windy) sunset with beers that had been sitting in the cars all day.
Kai :(
Thursday 26th
S'Aigo: Chris Hayes, Edwin Fernando, Aurelia Eberhard, Leonie Siepmann, Dylan Douglas-Dufresne
No reports as of yet
Cova des Pont: Ben Richards, James Perry, Wojtek Sowinski, Thurston Blount, Lamya Adam, Thomas Pearson, Kai Vice
My easter tour had finally started - after having the majority of my annual leave vaporised by China, I was only joining for half of this Easter Tour. But today was the day, and after pulling an all nighter in Stansted, a 4am spoons full English, rebuilding the whole of the Mallorca caves website with my AI minions and then a swift and efficient handover as Jackie left for departures within minutes of me leaving arrivals (completely unplanned), I had finally made it to Mallorca.
Thurston, Lamya and Thomas picked me up, who had all apparently spent the morning playing chicken with incredibly big waves that morning, and on our way back we tried to find some secret cave that Thurston had found online but it turned out to be too secret for us to find. We did however bump into a farmer who was of no help, so we abandoned plans and headed onwards.
I then finally got my tour of the villa magnifica just as the others were getting ready to go push a 100m deep shaft in search of frogs. Thurston really did do a fantastic job on this one, it’s hands down the best easter tour accommodation I’ve ever stayed in or even heard of - the back house is vast, with indoor pizza oven, huge upstairs balcony, interesting things plastered all over the walls like err ploughs and err saws? Also the kitchen has a well so large that they abseiled into it on the first day, and the echo from it is ridiculous whenever you slam a tin of tomatoes on the wooden cover.
Outside there’s the main pool, but also a huge outdoor pizza oven, an enormous bbq with hand cracked grill height, a roof frequented by three adorable cats, and enough room for plenty of deckchairs, of which there were many.
That brings us to the second adjoining villa, at the other end of the pool. Oh the pool also had some weird water feature thing and an outdoor shower. Anyway. The second house was in some ways even more ridiculous than the first - upon entering you’re greeted with a Marble Arch flanked by decorated columns, and a fine painting on the wall to enjoy while you glide up the large staircase. Before heading upstairs you may first want to enjoy the second outdoor garden - this one is smaller, but does have a koi pond, complete with real life koi. There’s also a convenient hose and kit washing area. Oh and all of this joins onto the second huge kitchen - the one for the second house. The bathroom here was however entertainingly free of any locking doors whatsoever. Waltzing up the stairs takes you to the star attraction though - past the second set of bedrooms and bathroom number 4, we open out onto balcony three, with large roof and washing lines, to see the finest addition to this fine house. The hot tub. You’ll be pleased to know it got a lot of use. Definitely worth staying at Cal Tio in Sa Pobla again if you get the chance. Also this was the cheapest place on the whole island. Insanity. No wonder the love Island villa is here.
Honestly this has set the standards far too high and now all future easter tours will be miserable and soul crushing. Thanks Thurston.
Anyway. Caving.
After convincing Chris that it wasn’t worth double rigging the 100m frog mission pitch, we set off for a cluster of Aesthetic V (TM) caves on the eastern side of the island. Roaming around this area, it wasn’t clear which way to approach the caves from, and the main road didn’t look particularly inviting as it passed by the sewage treatment plant. Soon however it popped out into a lovely open area where we quickly found out that our description for one of the Aesthetic V caves, Cova des Pirata, was out of date since they’d now added a large shiny concreted in gate to the cave and we didn’t have a key. Cova des Pont on the other hand was just down the path (both caves have a dive connection) and despite a concrete gate at the entrance, the fact that the entrance is a 10m diameter gaping chasm into the earth, there’s a convenient rusty ladder around the back you can climb down instead.
This cave was beautiful. Apparently it was briefly a show cave, but then they gave up, which is why a large bridge was built in its entrance for the path to wind its way down. This made progress incredibly easy. No SRT needed, although you could bring a short rope for the entrance ladder as a hand line were I to go again. 10m should be plenty given a convenient tree to back the up from.
I recommend first going left, then right afterwards, since left is a pretty little pool, some nice helictites, and some big old stals from before the roof caved in, but right is far better so worth leaving until later.
Heading right there are a series of chambers of large pools, large rooms and beautiful formations. It’s easy to see on the survey, but one of the rooms has a secret second room behind it. The approach to here goes up a ramp, and the increase in temperature was disgusting. But great for swimming. Climbing through a crack in the wall, an even larger room is reached that you have to swim through to reach the central island. Apparently this is very worthwhile. I was not convinced. Everyone else went swimming, leaving Perry and I to explore the rest of the cave. Another group returned here a few days later and found that this swimming room has a halocline in it - a salt water fresh water interface, which I now regret not going to see. Sadness.
However none of this is what the show cave originally wanted to show the public - following the path round and down through an open gate is a grotto with a large (much colder) pool of water, surrounded by a roof of beautiful white stals reflected perfectly in the still water below. Or at least they were until people started swimming. Never mind, I got some nice photos.
I wanted to take the scenic route back along the coast, although Thomas was topless by this point from wet clothes and Perry was in his down jacket. Fortunately Perry had a spare furry, all was saved. There were a few caves along the coast but they were all terrible, and more overhangs than caves. There was spectacular looking one across the bay though, and on the other side of the headland there was apparently one where you abseil into the sea and have to swim over into the cave.
A dinner of pseudo tapas followed with large quantities of batata braves, breads, Spanish omelettes and sangria. A round of the hot tub followed, with Thomas demonstrating how to stay submerged indefinitely by breathing from the bubble jets. Deeply concerning.
Ben
I don't know why I bothered wearing a furry for this cave. Every cave in Mallorca has felt like a sauna. These caves have a treacherous history of being far too warm, in my opinion. I declined the offer to swim the first time, as I wasn't sure how long people were going to be staying in the water. I ended up taking one of my cave naps instead. Highly reccommend. Ben and Perry hinted at some sort of challenge we'd need to make it through before we could find the originally intended showcave. After our history of unexpected locked doors, I was prepared to roll my eyes and head out of the cave when Thomas just pushed the door open. Thomas jumped into this water again, though he far more quickly headed out. I thought this was just Thomas being Thomas and disliking being wet, so I decided to strip and head in.
I thought I was going to die from the shock of how cold it was. Of course, the body has normal physiological reactions to cold, but I haven't felt like that ... ever. I doggy-paddled around until I felt like I wasn't going to lose a finger to hypothermia, and then it actually got quite comfortable. Ben had Thurston and I swim around and pose for some photos before we headed out. As someone who is highly experienced in entering and exiting bodies of cold water (has gone cold-water swimming exactly 1 time), I decided to make sure I had dry clothes when I got out. When I realised that Thomas was walking back practically naked because it was too cold with the caving kit on, I couldn't help but feel a bit bad that I hadn't warned him, with my vast experience of swimming in cold water once.
Kai
Friday 27th
Cova des Diners and Cova des Diners: James Perry, Chris Hayes, Julien Jean, Edwin Fernando, Aurelia Eberhard, Leonie Siepmann, Dylan Douglas-Dufresne, Sam Barber
No reports as of yet
Sa Campana: Ben Richards, Wojtek Sowinski, Thurston Blount, Thomas Pearson, Kai Vice
The day had come. It was Sa Campana time. I woke up a little early and shockingly so did everyone else. So far so good. Kai’s hand was injured after a fall the day before. No more hand for Kai. Only claw. Thomas made breakfast, which for him was cheese on toast. He then brought said cheese on said toast on a plate in the car. This man will go far.
Quick stop off at the shops to buy an entire tackle sack’s worth of food. I opted for maximum chaos and put a whole baguette in the slicing machine on the thinnest slicing setting. Half of Sa Pobla waited in line behind us while we figured out how this advanced European technology gave us our sliced bread back. Some of it is presumably still there today after we ran away in fear.
Then we were off for the mountains. Cyclists. Cyclists were everywhere. As soon as we were even on small hills they started spawning in around every corner. At one point Thurston pulled an incredible manoeuvre by taking a cheeky shortcut to get in front of the largest peloton we’d seen yet, only to immediately stall as soon as he pulled out in front of them, and his car refused to start for a solid 60 seconds meaning all the cyclists overtook us, many communicating their appreciation of our visionary manoeuvre with perplexing local hand gestures. And of course we then got moving once more so overtook them all just for good measure.
Thurston then also wanted to nip into a pharmacy for supplies for the claw but was outsmarted once again by a hoard of pensioners all staring at him and a pharmacist who was clearly in on it. He retreated back to the car in defeat and we continued our crusade against the bike enthusiasts.
Winding up into the big mountains we came up against the hunting packs. These were groups of cyclists unlike anything we’d seen before. Two pelotons would pick off a given car, one closing in from the front and the other from the back, until the car had no choice but to surrender its speed to the biker gangs, with coordinated counter flowing pelotons on the opposite lane preventing any escape. This was highly successful in adding almost an hour to our drive.
But at least going at the speed of a well trained ferret meant that we could enjoy the ridiculous road. Very twisty. So twisty that at one point Thomas’s rally style directions broke down entirely upon seeing a 270 degree bend in the road - so much bend that it looped back under itself and carried on looping. After this the road plunged down into a stunning mountainous valley overlooking the sea - this was to be our view for the morning as the cave was up high on a cliff to the right.
Parking is a random lay-by, and the path heads away from the road and up the cliff. This is more of a scramble, but was easy to follow and really not that hard. Even the claw victim made it. Very sweaty - although you wouldn’t want to bring all your personal clothes all that way as well given it’s about a 45 min walk. We changed in the car park. There are also shockingly convenient pissing places here:
“accessibility 10/10, privacy 9/10, comfort 3/10 - not enough leaves but some flat rocks, view 8/10 - I’ve pissed on better” - Kai
The grass on the scramble up is incredibly sharp, as well as there being Slovenian grade limestone blades. Wearing an overshot around the waist was ideal. Good views of the giant gorge below (this is apparently well worth a visit in good weather - the Mallorcan equivalent to Gorropu in Sardinia) and a huge cave ominously behind it.
Finding the entrance can be a little tough - it’s on open street maps as roughly correct. It’s relatively small and relatively hidden but there is a path to and from it given the frequent traffic. We found it after about 5 mins, and we were immediately happy with our decision to visit this cave.
The entrance alone is enormous and apparently a classic place to camp. I can see why, and immediately not regretted camping here myself. There’s no flowing water other than some small drips up behind some formations (should be plenty for drinking water if you leave it a while) so the toilet situation might require ascending up the 20m pitch and out of the cave, but other than that it’s the ideal spot.
Thomas rigged the entrance pitch, agreeing that Kai and the claw could rig further into the cave. After dropping this pitch you reach the camping area, and then after only walking around the corner you pop out in arguably the most impressive of all the chambers in this cave. Just doing this chamber and back in an afternoon is absolutely worthwhile if you don’t have time to do the whole cave. Emerging from a floor to ceiling wall of flowstone (with amusing windows in it you can pop out of) you’re presented with what feels like an arena sized spherical room with a fantastic echo.
This is the first of the three impressive chambers in this system. The echo in here is crazy, but not quite as good as in the third. We explored around a bit, poked up and behind the entrance wall and then skirted down towards the pitch. Kai rigged this rather long pitch along with the claw. It did turn out to be an incredibly difficult pitch to rig though because the rope lengths were very ambitious and the ropes were packed in the wrong order for the entrance so we had a slightly too short one for this really rather long pitch. Kai figured it all out, and then each of us who went down next passed slightly more slack back up as we each got stuck on a twatty traverse.
This main pitch ends on a large ledge, with a slippery slope down to the actual floor. You don’t need to rig a rope here, but it does help so you might as well bring one for it. We accidentally thought this was the pitch Chris mentioned needed rigging, so used the rope for the third pitch here. Oops. Did make it very easy to go down though.
Beyond this comes the repayment for the vast walking passage enjoyed so far. This is a downwards sloping dig that wound past boulders and climbs into the second large chamber. It’s not that bad but was quite annoying to drag my camera kit through.
This second room is perhaps the prettiest of them all. Instead of the grandeur and echos of the first chamber, this modestly high but really very wide room is instead bestowed with a forest of stals hanging from the ceiling. Helictites swarm from patches of the roof, criss crossed with streaks of stals dozens of metres long. The main attraction is a particularly ridiculous thicket of roof stals that we referred to as the chandelier, since it shone bright white against the dark roof, and was really quite ridiculous.
Beyond this chamber was a weirdly easy stoop through to the third and final large chamber. Popping out from the stoop you find yourself on a huge balcony, overlooking a simply enormous chasm in the depths of the Earth. This returned to the eerie echos and vastness of the first chamber, with a lone stal in the middle that looked like a spaceship attempting to land on a jellyfish the size of an upturned bus. Perhaps the best echo I’ve ever heard in a cave. Ridiculously fun.
Less good was the fact that we didn’t have the rope for the pitch to go and explore this chamber. Luckily we did have a ridiculously long sling, and the pitch is basically a walk down a slope other than one really dodgy bit at the top, which conveniently had a sling-able stal in prime position. All was saved.
The bottom of this pitch was a series of large gour pools, and then further down still are a series of holes that we saw on the survey led down through cracks in the rock below us to a large sump. These very much did not look worth the effort. Around the back of the room were some beautiful blue pools, a hole in a flowstone wall that the survey indicated was about a hundred metres deep, and a climb up the back of this led to a round trip back to the start, via some beautiful helictites and an almost invisible 2m long straw that everyone else walked past blindly.
Adventures complete, it was time to feast on the tacklesack filled to the brim with delicious foods back up on the balcony. This feast included, but was not limited to: two whole loaves of bread, 2L of iced tea, a selection of filled pastries, two pates - one with truffle and one without, rice cakes, a 6 pack of apple juice boxes, some weird sweets that seemed to have been painted black, 4 portions of “extra chorizo” whatever that means, a sachet of truffle cheese sauce, a pain au chocolates, two types of cheese, a packet of some bizarre blend of sliced turkey + pig + olives + nuts, a whole bar of milk chocolate, and of course all the normal cave chocolate bars and snacks we usually bring anyway. I regret to inform you that we could not finish all of this. But we were very happy nevertheless.
Gastric bypasses at the ready we slowly dragged ourselves off the floor and headed back to the entrance, taking some photos along the way with my flashes. Fortunately we didn’t have to derail as the other team would come and use our ropes tomorrow. Little did we know that in the meantime a million spaniards would rig their rope both above and below ours meaning poor Dylan had the derail of his life. But that’s tomorrow’s story.
Back at the first chamber Kai collapsed face first on a large wet stal, presumably out of sheer happiness, and decided to stay there for a while. Thomas made the fantastic recommendation of getting a shot of him staring into the abyss, and I sent Thurston off into said abyss with an annoying flash to hold. Just so Thomas didn’t feel overly fortunate I made him sit on a wet stal for good measure. Wojtek did some great flash holding.
Back out again we reached the surface about 8 hours after entering the cave, which felt suitably epic for such an epic cave. We wandered back by moonlight mostly, with the occasionally imprinting of the Fenix logo onto retinas by my head mounted fusion reactor. Vibes were high as we soared back through the mountains without a single cyclist in sight. Presumably they had returned to roost for the night in the trees. A lone Perry stood watch when we returned, and we passed on our knowledge and apologies of our rigging to him as he planned to venture there the following morning.
A fantastic cave overall - I don’t think it can quite pip Su Palu or Su Bento but it really does come close in my opinion. It’s also just far more pleasant than either of those two in my opinion. Visiting this cave was in fact one of the main reasons I wanted to visit Mallorca this year in the first place, and it certainly lived up to my hopes in that regard. Until next time Sa Camapana.
Ben
Saturday 28th
Sa Campana: James Perry, Julien Jean, Aurelia Eberhard, Lamya Adam, Dylan Douglas-Dufresne
No reports as of yet
Mitjana: Ben Richards, Chris Hayes, Wojtek Sowinski, Leonie Siepmann, Sam Barber
The last day of caving, given we have an early flight tomorrow.
Most of us were up early (well, by club standards) and after breakfast we got started on the pizza dough for the evening’s entertainment.
Given there were 14 of us, we required a large amount of dough. So much dough in fact that the only bowl big enough to contain it all was a decorative trough about a metre in diameter. This is not an exaggeration. After finishing bringing such a yeasty beast into this world we cautiously backed away and ran off to a cave that Leonie in particular had been dying to visit all week - Mitjana.
Mitjana is a beautiful cave by the sea. Aesthetic V no less on our lord and saviour www.mallorcaverde.es. As might or might not have been written up above, there was already a trip to this cave earlier in the week, and although they did mange to reach it, there were many adventures along the way. The main hiccup was apparently accidentally climbing a mountain on the way, only to realise the mountain path stopped at the top of a large cliff, meaning they had to climb all the way back down and go around the long way. This meant that Chris, who had already seen the cave, was actually very keen on seeing it for longer than 10 minutes, and to do the coastal traverse in daylight.
Armed with our new-found knowledge of not needing to climb any local mountains, it was actually very easy to reach the cave, by some beautiful footpaths that wound through the woodlands along the coast. Future humans, North is good to park, parking to the South means mountain of doom. As we approached the sea, a family came the other way saying that they were not able to reach the cave because of the large waves. We cautiously said we’d take a look for ourselves anyway. The waves were actually fine, and the path there wasn’t even wet so it was a little confusing why the family had turned around. The fact that families visit this cave should give you an indication of how easy it is to visit.
Picking our way along the coastline we were a good 5-10m above the crashing waves beneath us, but the waves were still quite impressive from the storm a few days prior. Occasionally a big one would jump up and mist everyone, but no more than that. Eventually we reached a small opening in the cliff, clambered inside, down a rickety old ladder that Chris had thankfully hand-lined, and we then popped out in the most stunning little cave imaginable. Note to future humans - bring a short 10m ish rope for this ladder, it’s quite wobbly and there’s a huge bomber natural at the top. Absolutely not necessary to bring SRT kit, even for novices.
The cave itself has some fantastic knobby pendant things that have clearly formed underwater - the classic brush parts of the toilet brush formations you sometimes see in pools. Except these were enormous, some over a foot across, pure white, and covering the whole ceiling in a bizarre upturned forest. After walking past these, you pop out in what can only be described as an indoor beach. A pool connects to the ocean behind the wall, and each crashing wave shot water out of a hole into the floor, sometimes high enough to hit the roof 2m above, causing a deep booming reverberation around the chamber. Apparently this was completely still and calm last time, so the storm waves were putting on a show for us. When the waves calmed down this would change from fountain to sublime pool. An adorably small sandy beach was opposite, hidden behind some large stals, and when the waves roared in, small waves would lap the shoreline. Sublime.
Around the lagoon are a few fun grottoes and holes to squeeze into - there’s a fun window to look out to sea higher up in the back of the cave which feels somewhat prison-like.
A photo session was in order, and everyone decided the funniest photo to do would be to pretend that we’re all on the beach, so to strip down to trunks and crack out a picnic on subterranean sandy shoreline. Chris then (very bravely given his infamous hydrophobia!) ran around the pool holding flashes so I could get some nice lighting, and we waited for an eternity to try and get the best shot of the geyser shooting water into the air. Naturally this was incredibly still when we had the flashes setup and then a raging tsunami as soon as we packed up and headed home. Much fun.
On the way back we went straight up the cliff. This was actually fine with a handline from the top, but given how chill the cliff traverse is, there’s not really any need for this. If the waves are high enough to block the traverse. then they’re also high enough to block the cave entrance so you don’t achieve much with the straight down technique. Anyway, we had a rope and the photo of climbing the cliffs above the foaming turquoise ocean below alone was worth it.
Just as we were patting ourselves on the back for sticking to the aggressive timeline we’d set ourselves on being back early enough to clean the house, Wojtek realised that he’d left his hoodie somewhere. Chris ran off to go find it. Incredibly luckily I’d brought all the walkie talkies with me that day, so Wojtek and Chris proceeded to have a long radio discussion that went something along the lines of:
Chris: So, where do you think you last saw it?
Wojtek: Err, probably on the [very long] traverse somewhere?
Chris: Right, and was it clearly visible?
Wojtek: Err, not really I think it was in some crack or hole.
Chris: Hmm ok, and what colour was it again?
Wojtek: It’s light grey, the exact same colour as the rock.
Chris: [External screaming]
After Chris did a good few laps of the traverse, and after Wojtek went down to help him, Chris finally found it right at the last moment when they were about to give up and head home.
Resting under a tree Chris whipped out some fun numbs, better known as paracetamol, and on the way back he then proceeded to lose his walkie talkie, just to make sure we didn’t make it back on time. I helpfully screamed into mine so that his would turn into a convenient homing beacon. This worked excellently well.
Although the rest of us considered leaving something important in the cave just to add to the excitement of the day, we then headed back home and fired up the outdoor pizza oven (the villa has two - one indoor, and one outdoor, naturally) and a delicious series of about 30 pizzas was made. 32 as a number comes to mind? Regardless, a large amount of mozzarella was finally extracted from the local Lidl, and at one point Thomas set fire to a load of spare cardboard and charcoal on the spare grill to pass the time. Chris used this opportunity to canon ball into the pool, immediately lose his glasses and then spend the next half an hour slowly drying himself infant of the fire.
As the afternoon became evening, and night became morning, we packed kit bags for our ungodly 10 am flight the next morning, and did as much cleaning as we could before the storm hit and most of us disappeared to try and get a few hours of precious sleep.
Ben
Sunday 29th
Cowbell clangs, Chris shouts to wake up, rain beats against the windows and yawns echo around the villa. Sa Pobla rises at such a din, checks their clocks, to their horror finds the time to be 05:30, and go back to sleep. Us poor cavers are not so lucky. Also daylight savings started today. It felt like 04:30.
Much eating, packing, sorting and cleaning occurs and miraculously we manage to leave at the respectable time of 7am, which give our flights are at 10am, is bang on time for the half hour drive over to Palma. Of course this whole time there’s a horrendous storm as well, making the whole process considerably more entertaining.
A short while later and we’re through security, despite our shockingly large number of caving headlight batteries. Snow is visible on the mountains from the storm, and the sun starts peaking through the endless grey rain clouds.
Before we know it we’re back in a chilly Britain, meaning the tour has come to an end. I for one had a fantastic time, so thank you everyone and bring on Slovenia 2026!
