Sardinia Easter Tour
Ben Richards, Matti Mitropoulos, Ellie Pizey, Chris Hayes, Jan Kożuszek, Wojtek Sowinski, Julien Jean, Laura Temple, Fan Wan, Magor Pocsvelier, Thurston Blount, Jackie Li, Aurelia Eberhard, Remi Soubes-Goldman, Claryce Yap, Leonie Siepmann, Josie Skirrow
Saturday
Milan sightseeing
Let’s just get into it.
At night some crazy couple screamed repeatedly on the street outside our window. I did not think about it again all through the morning train to Gatwick and meeting the gang, nor when I called my dad to wish him happy birthday, not even when I took my amazing seat in the front row of the plane and immediately drifted back to sleep. I only remember it now, looking out the windows at the grey and wet sky over Milan.
The gods of airline ticket pricing have made it their wish that we spend several hours here, so we might as well make the most of it. All I’d seen of Milan before now was the inside of its rail station, so I’m more than happy to remedy this, and I did some quick research while we waited for our plane in London. But first, food – one of my many Italian contacts said a chain called Miscusi was good, so that’s where we’re headed. This turns out to be a modern pasta joint, and they have just enough space for a team of hungry cavers, helmets bobbing oddly on their hand-luggage-rules-compliant backpacks. Great success.
Now it’s off to the Duomo. I remark that it’s probably the third most recognisable church in Europe, but after running this question across a totally representative sample of some friends, I will no longer be so sure. Regardless, I’ve unwittingly taken over this whole day, and everyone is blindly following me downtown. Soon we see it – reaching up with its spires, almost the same colour as the clouded sky above. The square in front is filled with people, and long queues spill from all entrances. We don’t have the time nor the will to bother with that. Quick selfie and we’re off, through the Vittorio Emanuele II gallery and on to the Castello Sforzesco. On the way I have a brief gossip session with Ellie, in particular concerning the C+J situation. This will be monitored as the trip progresses.
The castle is cool. Chris keeps staring at the little holes in the walls, remarking that he would love to stick a pole in there. How interesting. I pay 5€ to enter a gallery devoted to a Michelangelo sculpture. It turns out to literally just be that sculpture. I am joined by Ellie and Josie, who paid less because they are students and Not Old. Perhaps at their price it is more worth it. Still, the sculpture is cool. A pieta half-finished, giving the impression as if Mary was pulling Jesus back into the stone, away from the world that would treat him so cruelly. Outside, the group has finally dispersed slightly. We wait for some to return, before I again gather a little circle of followers and go off to see some Roman columns I saw on Google Maps. Next to these we also find a truly ancient church, parts of it dating to the 4th century, and mostly free to enter. How could I resist?
Then it’s time for food, some expensive but tasty pizza slices that I order looking at Claryce who stayed outside and is watching happily through the display window. We eat in a park named after my boy John Paul II before zooming on the metro back to Linate. The security goes super quickly, and we position ourselves at the Gaming Zone TM to wait. Then going to the gate, Ellie and I are concerned we can’t see Magor anywhere. He’d gone left the group at the castle, determined to catch up on sleep. Could he have got lost?
No. He is in fact right in front of us, asleep on a tall chair, curled over, his finger half an inch above the screen of his phone. The last YouTube short he watched is still on, looping over and over in front of his sightless eyes.
Then it’s a quick flight to Olbia and a dash with Chris to pick up the rentals before we incur a charge for being late. The drive goes smoothly, and I don’t even remember who exactly was in my car as they made basically no noise the whole way. Finally at our villa, I physically prevent Magor from taking over the room with the double bed and claim it for myself. Let the Tour begin!
Jan
My journey begins with a cheeky 04:45 start and a realisation that, despite my efforts to sweat out my fever by intensely overheating my body overnight, I’m still quite ill. I continue my efforts by layering up and conducting the entire journey whilst sweating profusely; surprisingly successfully, I should add. Despite abusing my body for another day, I was completely up from the sickness by Sunday morning. But first things first:
Since there’s no direct flights I stop off in Milano for a mid-morning stroll. Some key takeaways: -I was amazed that, despite it being Saturday morning, pretty much all shops only opened at 10:30 ish. -The tube connection between LIN and the city centre puts the Elizabeth line, needless to say the Picadilly line, to shame. Admittedly geography is on their side, but that seems like a Heathrow problem. -Milano centre has proper rich people vibes, but the cobbled streets and trolleybuses have charm. Shame about the toll it takes on cycling infrastructure though. Can recommend for ice cream: https://maps.app.goo.gl/aDH9kuMRecXGzNmM7. Cheap, super tasty, and quite central.
And soon I was whisked off over the Mediterranean, onto idyllic Sardinia. As before, I slept through the flight, only awakening on touchdown. Here I met with half of the pre-tour group to collect the shiny new car (literally new – it had a total of 16 km on the odometer) which Laura proceeded to drive over a curb and down the wrong way in a car park. I had already come to love the Italian way though – everything is said and done with just a little pizzazz, a touch of drama, even if its just hiring out a car.
Eventually we made it to the pre-tour crib, where random caving gear in various states of moistness were strewn across the patio and garden. I helped them clean up, and desecrate the shiny cars with muddy detritus and vast quantities of extremely carefully separated rubbish. Despite the bamboozlingly automated and unnecessarily complex rubbish depo, Julien’s genius idea of taking a photo of the displayed QR code and showing it back to itself somehow made it open up, and we were able to deposit the leaky bags. Continuing south we left the lusher, greener Olbia region, and entered the more arid mountains of the Nuoro region. A slight detour down a side street in Dorgali turned out to be a huge mistake – we were sucked into the ever-narrowing streets like lobsters into a crabtrap, Laura desperately trying not to scratch parked cars as we crawled past, an annoyed Italian behind us, navigating the perilous cobbled streets with ease despite his equally wide car. Ben’s navigator skills eventually led us to safety though, and through the hill we drove, down to Cala Gonone as it was gradually cast into shadow by the looming hills.
After successfully claiming a safe bed, and consuming dinner prepped by Remi, I decided to hit the sack early on grounds of lingering sickness instead of waiting for the riffraff to arrive sometime at 2am or so.
Matti
Sunday
Murgulavo: Ben Richards, Julien Jean, Laura Temple, Thurston Blount, Aurelia Eberhard, Remi Soubes-Goldman, Leonie Siepmann
Lovettecannas: Matti Mitropoulos, Ellie Pizey, Chris Hayes, Jan Kożuszek, Wojtek Sowinski, Jackie Li, Claryce Yap, Josie Skirrow
Cold! The room is cold! Must go out. Warm! Outside is warm! Glorious. It seems we are going caving. I have been assigned a cave. It is called Lovettecannas which is oddly long if you ask me. Let’s go.
The drive is incredible. Possibly the most beautiful I have ever done. After the hairpins up and out from Cala Gonnone, we turn left, and the road twists and turns, hugging the mountainside, as to the front and right a sprawling valley opens up, magnificent. The car carries us up, above a mountain pass and onto the other slope of the massif, so that the left-side passengers can also feast their eyes on the glory. We make one wrong turn, reverse and are now driving right behind Chris. Left turn, tarmac is gone, car is shaking. Ardeche flashbacks. Will the rentals survive? Then road gets better, but only marginally, and keeps going and going into the wild mountain country, land claimed by cows and goats and pigs.
The ‘parking’ we were navigating to is just a big puddle, so we carefully position cars around it. Matti, desperate to go caving, immediately begins to change into his kit. Fool. The rest of us disperse into the rocks and shrubs in search of the cave entrance. This is a daunting task and soon I hear Chris and Ellie calling that they are going back to the cars to get changed first. Fools. I continue on my own, across a rocky ridge into a small, lush valley, and again up some rocks. Here, using a pdf that Ben has put on the chat in the meantime, and a sliver of phone signal I catch up here, I finally find it. Hidden under a pile of branches, a hole in the rock, howling with draft. Back to the car I go.
Matti complains that we could have done all that after changing into caving kit. Fool. The other caving group is slowly arriving, having been forced to leave the Cactus along the way, so as not to destroy its clutch. Using and Julien’s watch map we manage to find a better route to the cave that avoids having to scramble up and above the ridge, but at least my lonesome adventure means we don’t waste any more time looking for the entrance itself. It is 3pm when we finally get down.
For a non-SRT cave, Lovettecannas descends with remarkable speed. I go first but end up in a blind passage and have to go out to follow the tail end of the group, who find in the correct route in the meantime. Isn’t it written that the last shall be first? Thankfully from now on the way forward is signposted with reflective markers. Chris took a cheap little camera down and is taking photos left and right. Down two handlines, through some large passages and a small-ish climb, I find myself at the streamway with Matti and Josie. Matti immediately starts drinking from the stream, before we point out to him the numerous little white bugs enjoying their lives in the water. As far as I know he is still alive at the time of writing, so it was all good. After this rest spot there is a short wet crawl, which causes some in the second half of the group to start losing their enthusiasm. Couldn’t be me though. I go through with Matti, and we’re joined by Wojtek and Josie and informed that everyone else decided to head out. Wonderful.
Beyond this point, the cave continues down on its incline, following a few smaller passages. At some point a climb up leads us to a crawl. I can hear Matti struggling mightily to make it through. A shiver goes down my spine – surely this is not the way? Indeed it isn’t, and a few steps back there is a turn we missed. The two routes turn out to converge, so Josie decides to do the crawl just for sport. On the other side she seems happy, but incredibly muddy.
We scramble across some boulders for a few moments before the cave opens up into a vast chamber, filled with huge pieces of rock, and with formations, some intact, some broken, lying spread on the cavern floor. Somewhere to the right, water is flowing smoothly downwards. Looking at the survey later we will find it very hard it to interpret, but this is most likely Polypheme. This would mean there is another, even larger chamber just below – but for us the agreed turnaround time is nigh, so after spending some 15 minutes bumbling about and letting out the occasional ‘ooh’ or ‘aah’ we begin the way back.
This goes smoothly, barring Matti trying to take a wrong turn here or there, and accidentally bypassing one of the handlines. After the wet crawl we even find that Chris has left us a note explaining their plan, and the handline that Matti skipped features a conspicuously ICCC-looking bag containing a bottle of water. Honestly really nice of the other team, much appreciated. Soon we are out in the night, a tremendous amount of fun and discovery in less than four hours of caving.
Confidently we begin retracing our steps back to the car. At a circular pile of rocks I distinctly remember turning left on the way to the cave, so now I turn right.
‘I think this is the way guys’ says Josie from the other side of the pile.
But I feel so sure!
‘This looks very clear’ says Josie.
‘I think Jan might be right’ says Matti.
I should have known it was the wrong way when Matti threw his weight behind me. Soon we are scrambling up and above the rock ridge in the last fleeting rays of sunlight. Still, we get back to the car, and only get mildly terrified when a large pig starts making noises at us from the dark. It has many cute babies and another large companion. Matti scares them off when they try to get too close (read: enter) the car, and soon we are on our merry way.
Jan
I woke earlier than most and had some time to kill before anything would happen, so went for a walk to the shops to buy some essentials. Once people started trickling to the breakfast table it became clear we needed more food, so a few of us sped off in Chris’ car to Dorgali to find things to eat. We stopped off at a Crai Supermarket, which turned out to be super fancy and quite expensive, so literally underneath it is a warehouse-type shop with mountains of olive oil outside, MD, where the cheapos go for sustenance. We cautiously sneak in, and Chris immediately insists we need to find a different shop as the price of cheese was too high. I eventually convince him that we’re unlikely to find anything cheaper in town, so we just buy exorbitant quantities of cheap pasta instead. And not much else. We realise at the hut we didn’t really plan this very well, and were missing quite a few critical items to make a normal meal, but that was a problem for future us. Current us wanted to go caving.
Ben began to plan out the two caves we can do without keys or permits over some stracciatella yoghurt. Off we drive, enjoying truly stunning landscapes and extraordinarily smooth roads at first – however, as was foretold by those who had been before, the landscapes lingered, while the roads became little more than dirt tracks. Although Chris was quite careful not to prangue the bottom, we sustained many a bush scratch and pebble fling, and it took quite a while to reach the ‘car park’ – which, turned out to be one gigantic puddle. Never mind, we squeezed our car in, and shortly after, Jan’s car rolls up.
I’ll spare you the pissy rant cos I actually got kinda annoyed, but in short: lots of time is wasted, but around 4pm the team finally entered the cave. It took us a little while to clock what the point of seemingly randomly positioned bike reflectors were supposed to be, but after the third or fourth it became clear – it was a system marking the best route; follow yellow for in, red for out. Quite a system, and works brilliantly.
The cave itself was a fantastically fun and beautifully decorated vertical yet SRT-less playground, where I had great fun speeding out front to check the way on with childish excitement, running back to check the others had found the correct way, and repeating (in my defence, I hadn’t been caving since winter tour, and glad to finally be caving, so was a bit excitable). At some point we had to go through a bit of a wet crawl, where we unexpectedly lost the hydrophobic half of the group, but the less water-shy group carried on for an hour or so into a spectacularly decorated, enormous chamber: the perfect turnaround point, just before turnaround time.
Way back was uneventful – back through the wet crawl, back through the squeezy entrance bit, always following the red reflectors. Out within a few hours, feeling like I’d done far more caving that I’d actually done.
A slightly chaotic wander back to the car ended in everyone getting a little bit freaked out by the large wild pigs that were a little too curious about the contents of the car, but thankfully they didn’t attempt to hijack the seats.
Matti
Monday
Su Bentu: Ellie Pizey, Julien Jean, Laura Temple, Thurston Blount, Remi Soubes-Goldman, Leonie Siepmann, Josie Skirrow
The Su Bentu Seven
- I -Half a league, half a league,
Oh god, not one more bloody league onward!
Along the iron road,
Scrambled the seven cavers.
"Forward, to the cooling stream!" they cried.
Along the iron road,
Sweated the seven cavers.
Their carabineers wearing thin,
Dreams of golden shores long gone,
Along the iron road,
Steadily undressing went the seven cavers.
Alas! When hope was but lost,
A new call was heard,
"I see a pitch!"
To the end of the iron road,
Survived seven overdressed cavers.
- II -In brown shallows, the mangy lot found their reprieve.
Out came the floats,
On went the flippers.
Then down into clear blue depths,
Slid the seven cavers.
Paddling, gasping, spitting,
They dragged filled wellies from shore to shore,
Over crags and pools.
Along the river’s course,
Swam the seven cavers.
Soon they landed on dry sands,
A yog banquet, their last demand.
"Back to the iron road!" they sighed.
"Back to the iron road!" they cried.
Their time had come, their journey near done.
Remi
Tisacali: Chris Hayes, Fan Wan, Magor Pocsvelier, Jackie Li, Aurelia Eberhard
Su Palu:Ben Richards, Matti Mitropoulos, Jan Kożuszek, Wojtek Sowinski, Claryce Yap
The good thing about organising trips with Ben is that together we have enough swaying power to actually make people stick to a timetable. But the bad thing, the bad thing’s the same. It’s 8am, maybe one or two minutes past, and Ben, myself, Wojtek, Matti and Claryce are packed up, in the car, ready to go. It’s the Su Palu trip so we’re in for a long one.
Ben, the only one from the gang to have visited before, has hyped Su Palu up for quite literally a year. Not joking – if you look at last year’s Easter Tour report, he favourably compares it to Noel. Noel! The pressure is on.
We take the same road as yesterday, letting out gasps at the same stunning spots as before. They’re just as amazing the second time around. Not long before the left turn for Lovettecannas we instead turn right and hairpin down to the town of Urzulei. It takes its seat at the end of a stunning valley, looking over lush fields and orchards and pastures. It is also in the process of waking up right as we enter, cars and little lorries navigating its narrow streets. First stop is to pick up the keys to Su Palu. Ben goes into a shop and re-emerges with a merry Italian man who doesn’t seem to speak a word of English. Instead, he points at our little group and asks something. “Si, tutti speleo!” – Ben’s Italian is perfectly sufficient for this communication. Now the man looks at me, down, up, the whole deal. With amazement, he proclaims
“Grande speleo!”
Joy ensues all around. Matti is so amused that he tries to get into the wrong car when we try to leave. It’s time for breakfast and shopping now. I did a little bit of research ahead and found a sandwich place that should be open by now, so that’s where we’re going. On the spot, we find it’s only just being prepared for the day, with another merry Italian man putting various meat items on the display. “Colazione?”. It’s my turn to flex my language skills. He points to some cold and miserable looking sandwiches on a shelf behind us. Oh, the disappointment! But the plot of the day keeps twisting like a meandering river, and the guy manages to convey that he can also heat something up for us, if we want. Dear reader, do I need to tell you that we do? We order five sausage sandwiches, as I saw some online reviews rave about those, while Matti and Ben go grocery shopping.
The morning is beautiful, and the rest of us pass the time by watching the man employed to water the town’s plants do his job. Then the lads are back, and then the sandwiches are here, and they are delicious. The man makes a little impression of wide shoulders as he passes them to me – the people of Urzulei seem to be baffled by my size. Brimming with happiness, we get back in the car and drive off. We get back some 15 minutes later – Ben and Matti forgot to take the shopping, so enraptured were they in their sandwich joy. Brimming with happiness, we get back in the car and drive off.
This time the road is (mostly) tarmacked all the way to the parking spot, so I can concentrate on avoiding the seeming hundreds of pigs crossing our route wherever they seem fit. The shoebody bop comes on the radio, having been put on the playlist with the explicit purpose of annoying people, and quickly cements itself in the brain stems of my passengers. And then we’re there, out of reach of any phone signal, getting changed and admiring a bridge with no floor left.
A quick walk in the gorge, and a scramble up some gravel, and we’re at the entrance. The first passage is a little tight, leading to an srt descent down a kind of smooth rock slide. Loud banging noises come from the direction of Ben. He is carrying a huge box with all his camera equipment on his back, trying not to smash it completely on all the rocks and the walls and also the ceiling. What a man.
We follow a low streamway for a little bit before coming across the crawl. This was advertised ahead of time as the only shitty bit of the cave, and it is indeed Not Very Nice. Still, it is only a few metres long, and I manage to squeeze through quickly, barely even dipping my face in the water.
Now the passage opens up, taking us past our first formations, with the first photo opportunities gladly taken. It’s only phone photography for now, not the big guns, so even having three people take turns sitting inside what looks like a little flowstone church pulpit does not take us much time.
Then there’s a large chamber, and Matti confidently strolls forward, dragging the rest of the group in his wake. At the back, I am looking with curiosity at a rock with a big arrow pointing up and to the right, at a slope with a handline. It’s not long until the gang realise they are trying to walk into a waterfall, and come back to take this, correct, route.
The traverse that follows is quite twatty, involving narrow platforms, long steps, and awkward drops. Still, with general mutual support, we make it through and land back in the streamway on the other side of the rapids. A few more minutes of bending down in the passage before the ceiling suddenly disappears somewhere above and we are standing on the shores of a lake. Its waters are cold and still, stretching into the darkness that hides the far walls of the cavern. Opposite us, in the rock, a gaping maw opens. Water spews out of it into the lake, joining the streamway we have followed. A confluence of the two Niles. Wojtek and I take a plunge. Refreshing, clear.
To go forwards we must step back and climb up. Over a few rocks, up a slope, into a new, sandy passage. Again a large chamber, the site of the old camp: El Alamein. The naming convention for this part of the cave is, for some reason, Egyptian. We pause on the smooth, soft sand. We eat and listen to Ben talk about the last trip he did here.
From here it’s not long until Lilliput. Just as the name suggests, it is huge. A massive flowstone formation welcomes us into this space, a tall but comparatively narrow chamber, the roof escaping the light of even our brightest torches. And it keeps going, the walls escaping away and closing in again and again as we scramble along endless boulders. The rock is bare, the huge flowstone entrance giving way to austere sharpness.
It's hard to decide what to do now. We still have some time before we need to stop, but where could we go after seeing this? The first climb I try leads to a rock with the words “NO BUENO” painted across it. Ominous. Turns out that’s just how they called the bit of cave that follows. Instead we try another way, struggling against the terrible survey. There is an in-situ rope seemingly not indicated at all on the map, but fortunately we don’t need to follow it up. A little extra effort takes us to find the Tesoro di Morgan, a lavishly decorated chamber where formations drip from every available surface. It is also, unless one follows that in-situ, a dead end. A perfect time to turn around. We sit on a flowstone bench to eat and celebrate.
On the way back through Lilliput we pause for the long ritual of taking Ben photos. This takes well over an hour, but the results will be worth it. Three people hold flashes, Ben holds the camera itself, one lucky person is the model. We finish with Claryce taking a photo of Ben, at the site where he took his first cave photo on the previous Sardinia tour, under the huge flowstone.
And then it’s back across El Alamein, along the shore of the lake, up a pitch and across the nasty traverse and back down into the streamway and we are getting really really tired at this point and getting through the many bottles of water that I insisted on bringing and carrying on my back the whole way. And suddenly we’re at the annoying crawl, and it is somehow a lot more annoying this way through and my face is half in the water and my oversuit is catching on the rocks as I push and push forward and then I pop free and breathe freely.
Only a few more steps now. Prusik up the incline wall. A touch of cold, fresh wind on my face. Stars up above the valley.
A drive back in the dark.
Soft mattress on the bed.
Jan
A crack team for the crackest of caves, Su Palu. Minimalist group sizes led to timely departures, as we sped off to the random hilariously friendly shop keeper who handed us the key without any form of confirmation other than
‘Ben?’
‘Yes’
‘Fantastic!’
Onwards to breakfast, which after some slightly confused ordering ended up being some genuinely amazing bacon rolls, thanks to Jan’s negotiating skills.
Onwards to the cave- oh wait shit we forgot the food. Backtrack 10 minutes – ok got the food. Now onwards to the cave. Parking by the skeleton of a vintage bridge which was fun to clamber around on, trying not to fall into the violent river below. Then we actually got changed.
Onwards to the entrance, which is an unassuming small gate at the end of a branch of a lightly trodden track at the end of the Road of a Thousand Pigs.
A chill SRT section spits us into a narrow streamway which we follow until the duck – here I first double check with Ben this that is actually the way before committing. As with all ducks, you first kneel in the water, contemplating your life decisions. Then you cry and exclaim in pain as cold water washes over you. Then you spend a few seconds panting on the other end. Then you stand up and think to yourself ‘huh that wasn’t that bad’, and shout ‘duck free! Its not that bad!’
Deeper and deeper we went, watching as the character of the cave gradually swelled into vast chambers, one of which was the old camp location, discontinued because the vast quantity of faeces left behind by the happy campers became too obstructive to the continuing passage. After reaching the stunningly decorated ‘Morgan’s Treasure’ dead end chamber we divvy up the remaining food, and plan out the photo spots.
Many hours later, Ben announces his ferocious lust for flashing had been satiated, and we pack together the toys. Back through the chambers, through the duck, up the streamway, up the SRT, and into the cold drizzly night we emerge. Hearty singing brought some comfort to the suffocating darkness during the long drive back.
Matti
Tuesday
Su Bentu: Matti Mitropoulos, Chris Hayes, Magor Pocsvelier, Jackie Li, Aurelia Eberhard
After hearing yesterday’s group proclaim their wild tales desperately trying to survive the harsh trials of Su Bentu, wherein the long hours of dehydration and despair culminate in the seven of them diving into the first puddly oases they come across, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect to say the least. The drive was unproblematic, Chris navigating the unsteady road with ease, and we were even greeted by a cat at the random house or church or tourist office we parked at. A lazy change and an easy walk led to the very cavey entrance – I remember Remi describing it as ‘picture the stereotypical cave in Minecraft, that’s what it looks like’ – and wandered into the gloom. A bit of faff at the gate, but soon we were in.
The via ferrata is probably the best bit, in my unbiased hydrophobic opinion. 2 hours of fantastically grand decorated caverns with no navigation and ropework (/cablework?) just difficult enough to keep it interesting but not hard enough that there’s big queues? What’s not to like? (well severe dehydration I guess, but just get good nephrons and you’ll be fine).
Some cheeky Chris-style photos and a few leisurely breaks, and we made it to the watery bit in no time. Unlike the other team, we entered with slightly more decorum, gently wading into the deep pools. While it was quite surreal floating through the vast chasms, where even my Fenix couldn’t light the ceilings, I ended up just getting quite cold so I wasn’t massively keen to splash around much. Interestingly, Chris has an even greater avoidance of water than I do, but our reactions were vastly different: I became very slow and deliberate, floating gently with minimal movement; Chris, on the other hand, violently bounced from wall to wall, splashing and diving with maximal movement. Each to their own I guess; maybe if I ever find a wetsuit that actually fits me I’ll enjoy these caves more.
Anyway we eventually made it to some drier chambers where we unpacked the celebratory cave champagne and brownie cake. Chris’ warning earlier (‘careful: cave champagne hits harder than surface champagne’) rang true, and I felt the small bottle quite significantly on the way out. Maybe that was one of the reasons Chris and I spent the entire return journey belting out any and all songs we knew the lyrics to. The fantastic acoustics of the vast dry caverns with the via ferrata also egged us on – hopefully it wasn’t too annoying to the others. I had a great time.
An easy evening with some italian beer and light chatting brough the tour to a close for me.
Matti
Tiscali: Ben Richards, Jan Kożuszek, Fan Wan, Leonie Siepmann
Tiscali
One of all the very stunning caves of Sardinia is Tiscali. It is ‘only’ a 100-meter pitch into a huge chamber, that can be exited walking at the bottom. Ben, Jan, Fan and I therefore decided to explore it for the whole rest of our day. I dressed matching to the weather: shorts, t-Shirt, harness. Though these clothes are rather questionable for caving, it interestingly turned out to be one of the only clever decisions made that day. But let’s start at the beginning.
We were told that the cave is very hard to find, past a wooden gate on a certain cliff. Ben, competent as he certainly is with charts, soon found an ancient village ‘Tiscali’ “on the way” and we decided to visit it as well. We drove into the valley, picked up the cave keys, shouldered our things, and started the hike. Still near the parking lot we heard gunshot sounds in the distance but decided to not bother. We were to stay on the hiking path, right? What should happen…
We were halfway up the mountain, when we decided, to leave our caving gear, to pick it back up on our way to the cave, so we could proceed on our way to the village much easier. It truly was a nice hike, even though we walked on incredibly sharp karst rock (note to self: never again choose barefoot shoes for such hikes). What I enjoyed most where the stunning views on our way. The Tiscali-village turned out to be even better: A true stone age village ruin, that lets you understand, why people bothered to hike up all mountain, to find a place so shaded from wind and weather, but still light and airy.
After visiting this beautiful village, we picked up our caving gear again and made our way towards the cave entrance. Though the way we were supposed to go, was not very easy to make out, we found chains from time to time and some rock looked worn enough, hopefully?!
We encountered a fence, with no gate, but two poles were tied together with a rope, so we assumed that it must be the right way. On the other side, two lovely puppies greeted us with lots of kisses and started us following us along the path. Soon after that, we found mama dog. She did an amazing watchdog job, barking very loudly, making it very clear, that she didn’t like us to be on her side of the fence. But luckily stayed close to the sheep, she protected, so we continued anyway.
Then we found the other side of the fence, and yes it had the cliff on the other side, great! But the wooden gate? Where was it? We decided to climb the fence at a point, where the wooden fence structure was more rigid and the stones around high enough. Good so far, but where was the cave now? The cliff was very steep, and we had to do lots of little climbs. Eventually Ben found the cave. The description of previous cave reports we had, that the cave is hard to find, is perfectly accurate, by the way.
After the lucky feelings having finally found the cave, an amazing lunch, and some rainy drizzles, we started investigating how to rigg the cave. It wasn’t exactly obvious. We found a tree to start with. But then… lots of bolts, … and more bolts… and at this point, it should have been very straight forward, had there been any bolt hangers. Yes, you heard correctly, there were no hangers. And even the person handing us the keys earlier, didn’t bother to mention that. We hence abseiled the first 30 meters, looked at the cave from the top, where the rebelay is supposed to be and enjoyed the stunning echo. Before prosecuting back up.
After derigging, we decided to search the cave exit and started the hike back. Still on the cliff, we first climbed back up and over the fence. Back on the way we started walking downhill towards the parking lot, until we found a gate. Not exactly wooden. Instead, steady metal topped with barbed wire and lots of signs on the other side, which’s writing we could only guess. Moreover, a chain and a huge lock. But as the fence around was barbed wire as well, so certainly not climbable, and we were trapped inside, with mama dog in behind. So, we had a closer look at the gate. Could we squeeze underneath? Not quite an option. But… the cain was not actually connected to the lock on the other side, and we could reach it! Once we made it to the other side, we looked closer at the signs. We also remembered the gunshot sounds earlier got a very bad feeling. There was a gun pictured next to a “keep out” sign. Maybe, the rope closed poles were not meant to be a gate. But given the fact that we were on the ‘right side’ of the fence now, we continued to the cave exit.
We reached the cave exit at sunset. Welcomed by lots of bats, we made the near crawl towards the big chamber. With some limbo, clear walkable. And yes, the chamber is truly epic.
For everyone not wanting to do all the torture finding the cave entrance, which we, looking back, would clearly not recommend anyway, go straight to the cave exit and have a look at the big chamber. No cave gear or cloth needed but pack a good torch. Its big! We had a short look at the night sky through the cave entrance, the little Christian crib, and all the formations. Then we went home through the night.
Here some tips if you want to repeat that trip:
Bring money for the ancient village, it’s a museum
Wear good hiking shoes
Take a backpack for your stuff. No tackle sack needed, but your back will thank you
Bring bolt Hangers!!!
And rope protection against rope rub
Look at open street map or equivalent, to find the cave
Plan lots of time to find it
Don’t forget to pick up the key
People are said to have achieved the descent. Apart from two groups failing this year, it is certainly possible!
Leonie
WARNING: DO NOT GO TO TOP ENTRANCE!!!!
After Monday I am very tired. So tired in fact that I wish only to have a chill, non-caving day. I even got a piece of a cactus taped to my head! What could be more chill?
So of course, soon I find myself in a car with Ben, Fan and Leonie, off to a remote valley to do some caving. In my defense, the cave, Tiscali, was meant to be quick and breezy, and on the way there we were going to check out an ancient village. In no universe is there a version of me that would resist the appeal of that.
The road into the valley is a new level of terrible, consisting of more hole than surface. We quickly lose all mobile signal, and it takes quite a while before we reach the designated parking spot. Walk up from there, admire views. Shimmy through a narrow opening in the rock, and scramble over some rocks, and go around to the other side of the mountain we are on, to find a friendly Italian man waiting to sell us tickets.
The tickets are to see the village, and the village is a few circular arrangements of stone, completely hidden from the outside world inside the hollow tip of the mountain, maybe an old collapsed cave. Very cool!
Walk back, fearing rain. Rains for a second, then stops. Ben has a map, we have specific instructions where to go, what could go wrong? The map leads us onto some sharp rocks, with a few cairns to reassure us we’re not going crazy. Somewhere down in the valley we hear the barking of dogs. What could have startled them? Rocks, rocks, sharp rocks. Leonie is not wearing the right boots for this.
Then, a fence. Map says to keep going, but no way forward. Simple, just untie the piece of string keeping the fence together, it’s almost like a gate, surely we’re meant to go through. So we do. Easy path down now.
Then barking again, and suddenly two dogs out of the bushes. Dangerous? My heart speeds up a little, but no, these are puppies, very very friendly, they try to kiss Fan. Further below is mama dog, watching us from a distance, making sure we don’t come any closer to her goats. Good dog.
Walk further down. A house within the cliff face, man sitting there, eyeing us with hostility. Says nothing. Below another cliff face, another fence. We’re meant to find a ‘wooden gate’ in said fence. It does not exist. What does exist is a few wooden pieces within the fence that we can use to climb over to the other side.
Great, now we’re on top of a sharp, rocky drop. We carefully climb down and to our right. The cave entrance must be somewhere here! A sharp rock tears a hole in my trousers. It’s ok. They were on their way out anyway.
At this point we’ve spent hours on our journey to find Tiscali, and it’s been infinitely harder than we expected. But finally, here it is: a vertical drop into an abyss, its floor invisible in the dark. Amazing.
Ben gets ready to rig, I sit down to read for a minute.
There are no hangers on the bolts.
What
There are no hangers on the bolts.
We can’t go down the cave.
Ben rigs off a tree to go find the first rebelay. He finds it, and shouts:
There are no hangers on the bolts.
We have to abandon the attempt, though Leonie and Fan do go down to at least see the rebelay. Ben comes back out and discovers the long-lost cave phone at the bottom of a bothy bag. At least one benefit of this experience. Climb back up, over the annoying fence, then walk down the road. The path is closed, with a gate, fence, barbed wire.
What is happening
Before anyone attempts to climb over the barbed wire, we realise the gate can just be opened, the huge lock on its chain isn’t actually holding anything together. On the other side, looking back, we find a sign telling us to proceed no further, warning of dogs and of guns. I guess we weren’t meant to be where we just came from. Walk all the way down to the bottom of the valley, find another ‘no entry’ sign. Scribbled on it in Italian it seems to say that there is no access to the top entrance to Tiscali. This would have been good to know around 5 hours prior. Or if the guide the gang talked to the day before about going to Tiscali, if he said a word about this, or the hangers. That would have been swell.
Might as well walk to the bottom entrance now. It’s another hour, but at least this time with no complications. It’s already dark by the time we’re underground. Crawl down, beneath a bat colony, through an obvious dig.
Then a huge chamber. Up above, the last of the light of day visible – the top entrance, so devoid of hangers. Formations rise up around us, indifferent and beautiful. Under one, a small box. A nativity scene, left alone in the dark.
We get out after twenty minutes or so. Walk back to the car, drive away. Exhausted once more.
Would recommend the bottom entrance, though.
Jan
Wednesday
Road trip: North edition
Road triiiip! Germans in the car, Leonie, Aurelia, Fan and Matti. Matti dropped off in Olbia, flying away. The rest of us go further north, a few stops in seaside places. All feeling pretty dead. At the north end of the Island, we catch a ferry over to Bonifacio on Corsica. Up on the rocks, crowded medieval houses overlooking the sea. The cliff face scarred by a staircase descending diagonally to the water. Beautiful views. Aurelia and Leonie disappear, apparently end up finding a cave and climbing some part of the city’s foundations? We just go for a meal, most restaurants are closed but the one that we manage to sit down in turns out to be delightful.
Get some phone charge on the ferry back, drive in the dark.
So tired.
Jan
The day to leave for me. Jan very kindly offered to drop me to Olbia airport, saving me the faff of terrible public transport, after which he and the remaining Germans disappeared off north, and I flew back via Rome. I had the most amazing pizza for lunch in a random street market in Trastevere (https://maps.app.goo.gl/Ko8pjKFf3iBWpfGo6) before heading onwards, as my presence was demanded at work on Thursday.
Matti
Road trip: Treasure island attempt
Did any caving happen on this and do we know the name of that cave? I think Ben, Thurston and Julien went to one.
Thursday
Su Palu: Chris Hayes, Laura Temple, Aurelia Eberhard, Remi Soubes-Goldman, Leonie Siepmann
Donini: Ben Richards, Thurston Blount, Jackie Li, Josie Skirrow
Mystery Sea Cave: Jan, Ellie and Julien
Wake up, eat some breakfast, go back to sleep.
Oh, it’s 2pm?
I join Julien and Ellie on a chill walk to a beach. We swim for a little bit, into a ‘sea cave’. Just a small nook in the cliff face. Cave count, maybe? After the swim back out Julien claims he has ‘never been colder in his life’. This seems suspicious, but I do give up my jacket and wait for him and Ellie to go back up to human temperature.
We walk up, planning to loop through a nuraghic village and back down to Cala Gonnone. Ellie discusses her life and career plans. By the time we get all the way up, she and Julien realise they both left their goggles at the beach, so we have to go back down and then walk the same way we came. I make sure to make fun of them for this to a sufficient degree.
Then a shop, Fan makes a nice dinner. Finally a chill day. And good, because tomorrow, Su Bentu!
Jan
Friday
Sa Conca de Locoli: Chris Hayes, Wojtek Sowinski, Fan Wan, Josie Skirrow
Canyoning: Jackie, Julien, Thurston, Ellie, Remi, Laura, Aurelia
After my big trip the day before, a calm chill-out day was clearly in order. So the idea of the others to do a canyoning tour close to our accommodation came at just the right time. We were expecting a short route of only 3 or 4 pitches (the sources didn't quite agree), so there was no pressure to set off early. Instead, our leisurely breakfast turned into a relaxed lunchtime snack until we finally set off in the afternoon.
We quickly made our way to the first pitch, where I abseiled in daylight for the first time in my caving life (tree training excluded). That's quite something! The last two, higher pitches in particular were great fun. Unfortunately, derigging the pitches turned out to be more difficult than expected, which is why we moved slowly through the canyon with a few breaks. In order to defy any boredom that might arise, and because as cavers you are of course always on the lookout for caves even on non-caving days, we (especially Julien and I) investigated all sorts of suspicious- looking holes in the rock faces along the way. With success!
Two of the holes turned out to be not very deep, rather unspectacular caves. But things were about to get even better: After the last pitch, the canyon widened and revealed many promising potential cave entrances. However, most of them were at unreachable heights. True to the saying ‘All good things come in threes’, Julien and I were determined to find another cave and were not disappointed: At the top of a large stone slope, which already looked suspiciously like a path, we actually discovered a metal ladder leading up to the next rock overhang. And there was the entrance to a huge show cave!
Once everyone had followed us into the cave, we set off to explore. Maps of the cave system were laid out at short intervals, on which the location was marked. There were also specially draped fossils, bone remains and pottery with accompanying explanations, another ladder and, of course, some bats. Not bad :)
We then hiked quickly down the last part of the canyon to the beach, from where we had a great view of the surrounding bays, and finally home. Summary: A relaxed trip in an extremely beautiful landscape with the pleasure of unexpected caving.
Aurelia
Su Bentu:Ben Richards, Jan Kożuszek, Leonie Siepmann
clink
Ben stared in disbelief, the key falling just out of the reach of our hands. With no rope to go forward and the gate shut behind us, we had to face the inevitable and settle down for the long wait. In 24 hours, somebody would come and let us out from this tiny prison. I touched the rock, my bed for the upcoming night. It was cold.
…Is how this story could have ended. That it didn’t is more down to luck than any merit of ours. What did happen, then?
Much like for the Su Palu trip we had to get up bright and early. This was to be a crack team, a bold attempt at reaching the far end of Su Bentu. Just three of us: Leonie, desperate to attend a (to some approximation) faff-less trip; Ben, with his survey and camera and general know-how; and me, because somebody had to drive.
After Ben reassured me that no ropes were necessary for the trip, we set off, back into the remote valley that we’d gone to for Tiscali. Two small breaks on the way, first flexing our language skills by asking for ‘due centi grami’ of mortadella at the supermarket, then interrupting an oddly large gathering at a barbecue so we could look at the resurgence of the Su Bentu waters.
At the parking by the ‘base camp’ we were greeted by a friendly little cat, wanting to assist is changing into our wetsuits. This was to be a no-oversuit trip, to avoid complete overheating. With the bags of food and water and expensive camera equipment on our backs we walked the short path up to the cave entrance. The metal gate wasn’t very far in, just behind a short handline, and soon we were all behind it. Then came a little clink: Ben, having locked the gate behind him, proceeded to immediately drop the key, which fell on the outside. It was down to providence only that he could still reach it, sticking his arm between the metal bars. That’s the first disaster avoided, though I think given the perspective of a 24 hour wait we probably would have found the strength to break the thin chain that was holding the gate in place.
A short crawl later Leonie, with a great sense of comedic timing, asked
‘So, who has the entrance pitch rope?’
I actually felt my stomach drop: Ben had told me no rope was necessary! Leonie, who’d done the first parts of Su Bentu with a faffy group on a prior day, had simply assumed that either me or Ben had the rope in our bags. We stared down the infuriatingly short drop down into the next chamber. There was no way to climb down, we had to turn back.
We weren’t ready to give up, though. First, we considered nicking the handline, using it to descend, at replacing it on the way out. This idea quickly had to be discarded, as the handline was way too fucked to be safely used that way, even if we could untie it from its rightful place. Our last chance was to ask at the base camp. Incredibly, the guy there, after making sure that we actually had the permission to visit Su Bentu, looked in his car and produced a set of ropes that would be more than enough to let us proceed further. After thanking him profusely, and thanking him some more, we were on the right path again.
Said right path, after a chamber or two, led us to the Via Ferrata of Death (VFD). While the large passage went down and to the left, the way on was up, cowstails clipped into seemingly endless steel ropes.
click-click
was the sound of the snapgates, every 10 seconds, between different sections of the rope.
click-click
I was beginning to get drenched, sweat running down my forehead.
click-click
I had to give up on my glasses, fogging up to the point of rendering me blind. I hadn’t put on contact lenses since we’d have to swim a lot: this was what I got in return.
click-click
Leonie disappeared somewhere ahead, faster than I could ever be. Meanwhile Ben and I had to take off the top halves of our wetsuits just to have some approximation of thermal regulation.
click-click
VFD vignettes: a shoddy bit of steel, normal rope serving as backup. A pitch down, giving me false hope, as even more Ferrata followed. Ropes secured to formations. A near-sighted blurriness to all, a world reduced to a fuzzy circle illuminated by my headtorch.
click-click
And then it was done. And it was time to swim, and the water was gloriously cold.
The lakes were smaller than I expected, more like long, narrow pools, not like the huge space of Su Palu. But what they lacked in size they made up for in number, coming one after the other, separated by short rocky scrambles. No cave before had ever been as fun as this for me, and I couldn’t hold in my delight every time I felt the water engulf my legs and torso.
Several times we were grateful that Leonie had been to Su Bentu before. In keeping with the theme of the trip so far, the survey was terrible, showing water where there was none, and in no way indicating a few tricky turns we had to take to avoid wasting time down dead ends.
I couldn’t quite tell how long these sections of the cave took us. The VFD and the Lakes had seemed endless, one hellish and one heavenly stretch of caving. But now new things seemed to come after every corner. First, a tall passage, dozens of metres high but only five or so wide, jutting straight through solid rock: the Autostrada. At its end a low passage filled with water took us into a chamber where drips of water fell from some unknowable darkness above: the Grande Pioggia, the Great Rain. Then the path lead us up, on top of pristine dunes and by galleries of formations. Despite our best efforts we could not decide which of them was meant to be the ‘UFO’ we were told to expect. Confusingly, there seemed to be more rain here than at the Great Rain. Still, assuming we were reading the survey correctly, we carried on.
Down a gravelly slope and left under a low ceiling we emerged into another large space, its floor lined with dunes. This had to be the Sahara; our goal had to be just around the corner. Then a climb down, traversing to the left of some hole, and back up into yet another large chamber. With every new reveal I felt excited: was this it? Were we finally here? Arrows on the walls told us where to go, guiding us through a short crawl into a sloping chamber, filled with large boulders. Seeing a clear way on, I climbed up a slope of dirt and mud only to find myself in a dead end. Nothing on the survey seemed to correspond to this. Were we lost?
We decided to go back through the crawl and reassess. On my way, I noticed that up a flat rocky platform on the side of our chamber somebody has left a cairn. I followed that way, but it in no way corresponded to what the survey told us to expect, so, when the passage kept getting smaller, I turned around and followed Ben out.
It perhaps speaks to how tired we were at this point that we didn’t take the cairn to be the obvious mark of the correct route. In our defence, the survey really did leave much to be desired. Still, after bumbling about for half an hour or so, we decided there was no way we were anywhere else than where we were meant to be, and we went back to investigate the cairn passage.
And there it was, only a few metres beyond where I had turned back on the first attempt.
A huge chamber, its ceiling invisible, its far side somewhere behind the silky blackness. Its right wall was rough rock, its left was a straight, smooth slab of stone, like some unimaginable giant had carved a piece of marble from this spot before it was forever hidden from sunlight. Against it was piled a mountain of boulders and rubble that we hiked up, unable to comprehend the enormity of this space. There was a path, winding its way between the rocks, up to a point where we stopped to catch our breaths and eat the rest of our bread and some chocolates.
We had made it. We had done it – all that was left was to take photos and begin the long route back. Ben handed flashes to us, headed to the peak of the slope, and the ritual began anew:
“Move down a bit, Jan!”
“Leonie, can you hide the flash behind your hand?”
“One two three… flashing!”
The chamber was so big that multiple photos would have to be stitched together to convey even an approximation of its proportions. This would indeed be done, painstakingly, by Ben, who at this point is surely eyeing the status of cave sainthood.
An hour or so later, maybe less, maybe more, the flashes were back in their case, and we were looking behind us one last time, before heading into the series of crawls that so confused us on the way in.
Then it was the same once more: Grande Frana, then Sahara, then Sombrero, giving way to Grande Pioggia and the solemn and efficient Autostrada. And once more the lakes, one after the other, each one as refreshing as the last.
And finally a route up, and a steel rope, and
click-click
I was so tired
click-click
The world was so blurry, my glasses somewhere in the drum on my back
click-click
Wetsuit again undone, bare back against the rocks
click-click
Leonie gone somewhere ahead, faster than I could ever be.
And then on some sharp ledge I ripped a huge hole in my wetsuit and underwear, exposing my entire ass.
No way to sugarcoat it, and Ben had to see it, too.
At least it wasn’t too far, now.
click-click
And then we were out, underground almost exactly twelve hours, just as we had planned. I made sure to always have my front towards Ben and Leonie as I grabbed my clothes from the car, to avoid any further indecencies. The ‘shoebody bop’ on, the best caving trip of my life completed, we drove off into the night.
Jan
Saturday
Via Ferrata at Gorrupu: Everyone
Let’s be honest, after Su Bentu neither you nor I have any strength left for coherent, continuous text. So, here’s an executive summary:
- Went for a drive to find some via ferrata.
- On the way Chris went down a mystery staircase only for his head to pop out from the side of a cliff.
- We also did a race on the tiny road, both of us later claiming we would not have been this fast were it not for the other car. There was also some beeping, hand gesturing and cursing as we did our best to impersonate Italian drivers.
- Lovely hike.
- Swing from a tree.
- The ‘ferrata’ was very very short.
- Only Ben seemed to know where he was going, everyone else tried to skirt around the side of a gorgeous little lake.
- This resulted in Ellie getting soaked.
- Wojtek, Jackie and I followed Ben further down the gorge (though we did briefly lose Jackie, which wasn’t very nice of us).
- After a very twatty slope we came back down into and followed the rocky riverbed.
- I got too concerned about the coming dusk, so I turned around with Wojtek and Jackie. Only speedy Ben would see the end of the gorge, something he’d been desperate to do all week.
- Got back to the car right as the last light was disappearing.
- Back in the villa was food and Bobo.
- Bobo made fun of both me and Thurston for our enormity. I suppose that’s some form of justice.
- The C+J situation had developed positively.
And then the trip was done. Just like that.
Jan
Sunday
For a caver, there is nothing more natural, than to fly to beautiful and sunny Sardinia just to descend underground as quickly as possible, reducing your field of vision to just the small cone of your own head torch. And that is exactly what we did. During the Trip, I got up much earlier than usual and (almost) always came home late with the last team. Every day, the caves got longer and longer and the days correspondingly shorter, which is why I only know the beach and harbour of our little town Cala Gononne in the dark.
You might be thinking right now: wouldn’t it be much smarter to go caving at night and enjoy the beaches and explore the island during the day? Well… Ben, Jan and I decided to cave during the day and at night and to just postpone the callout until the next morning. I am sure Ben has already written the best report imaginable, and I am certainly not going to challenge him on that. I am very much looking forward to his amazing pictures of Grandissima Frana!
Still, I could not miss the chance to enjoy the Mediterranean sun, so I spent a day in the sunlight with Jan, Fan and Aurelia. We took the ferry from Santa Theresa across the Strait of Bonifacio towards the chalk cliffs.
I am always deeply impressed by how this beautiful town sits enthroned on the rocks, how a tiny gap opens up between the rocks through which the car ferry then squeezes and how, just around the corner, the harbour is embraced by the cliffs that provides protection from even the strongest storms. Of course, like always, the distant thunderstorms let us know all day that glorious sunshine and stormy thunderstorms are never far apart in the Mediterranean.
But even in Bonifacio we did not enjoy much of the sunny weather. As we obviously would not be the Caving Club if we hadn't immediately gone back underground into the fortress and climbed the ramparts once we arrived in Bonifacio.
