Reading University Caving Club

By Harvey Connolly

After the bombast, Brexit costumes and bitter cold of last year’s CHECC in Yorkshire, we recently gallivanted over to the event’s southern subsidiary, excitingly named…..Southern CHECC. Our journey to the South Wales Caving Club began with us squeezing ourselves and our kit into a single car, inducing a sense of artificial claustrophobia which would serve as a great warm-up for the coming caving, and began bombing toward the Welsh border, discussing en route how SCHECC would compare to its big brother event, speculating that it would seem more subdued for the smaller scale, more reminiscent of a busy regular caving weekend than the out-and-out chaos of CHECC proper. Although, given the latter arguably peaked with a mass of semi-naked spelunkers dissolving into an intoxicated vortex of moshing, seeming more ‘subdued’ wouldn’t be particularly difficult.

(more…)

By Harvey Connolly

Toward the end of February, we set off on our third club trip of the year, bound for a destination we seldom have an opportunity to visit – Derbyshire, and more specifically, the town of Castleton, where the headquarters of the Technical Speleological Group resides. After collecting and packing the weekend’s equipment into the minibus in terrifyingly efficient time, we set off on our northward journey, falling just short of the initial ETA which would have permitted us time to grace some of the town’s many pubs, but otherwise making good time.

The Technological Speleological Group (or TSG) itself is housed in a building which, one could argue, has experienced a gradual degradation of purpose over the years; from its noble origins as a chapel, the structure eventually found itself converted into a garage and, finally, a base for cavers from which they can marauder outwards across the hills in search of the surrounding subterranean systems. Arriving just after 11pm, we descended from the minibus into the biting chill of the February night, and gradually began the transfer of our supplies into the hut which would serve as home for the following few days. Entering through a main door treacherously located on a roadside between two blind bends, visitors find themselves in a concreted space equipped to store and clean caving gear, before a door atop a brief flight of stairs leads to the hut proper. Here, the large central room has an elevated second tier running three sides of its perimeter, only accessible by ladder, which seems to be used to store various miscellanies, paint cans and stray equipment. With showers on one side of the room, a door on the other leads to a short corridor; from here, it’s possible to access the kitchen, and the flight of stairs which lead to the cosy bunkrooms and a lounge area, kitted out with sofas, surveys, and a myriad of old literature on cave science and past escapades. Here, we considered our options for the weekend to come, relaxing and unwinding after our journey.

(more…)

By Harvey Connolly

This year, we’ve had plenty of opportunities to brave pastures new for more recently inaugurated members of the RUCC, with trips to seldom visited Derbyshire and Devon, but, with an annual tradition scheduled into the club calendar, we once again returned to our old stomping ground of Mendip, and more specifically, The Belfry, hub of the Bristol Exploration Club. Gathering on the evening of departure, our attempt to start our journey to the West Country was scuppered at the first hurdle, as we merrily piled our kit and equipment onto our hired minibus, only to find said bus completely unresponsive. A quick inspection revealed that a dysfunctional drive belt wasn’t having any our plans to leave as early as we’d hoped, but we were at least able to enjoy the university’s own Friday night firework display until our operational substitute arrived, ready to ferry us away to Somerset.

We arrived at The Belfry just after 10pm, having made remarkably good time with the drive, but upon entering, something felt…different. The Belfry, generally, is safely consistent in its atmosphere. The bunkroom, consisting of two tiered stretches of plywood serving as communal sleeping space, still had a ceiling decorated with faded beer mats and tap labels, chronicling the long history of the BEC’s pub adventures. The lounge area, complete with substantial wooden dining table, wood burning stove and dubiously acquired road and caving-related signs adorning the walls, had been altered slightly with the movement of the kitchen area into an adjacent room, freeing more space for a handful of plush sofas. But the change that struck us was how disconcertingly quiet the space seemed. The previous year’s firework celebrations had consisted of entering a room where a rabble of students were self-inflicting minor concussions with the slightly mad game ‘danger can’, before the weekend concluded with cleaning the fragmentary remains of a dozen smashed pumpkins from every conceivable surface across the hut (and the prone forms of several worse-for-wear residents on Sunday morning, too). Admittedly, it was relatively early by the standards of the average caving night, and after depositing our possessions on the crash-mats which were to serve as beds for the imminent future, we began our pilgrimage along the dark stretch of road connecting The Belfry to the well-loved local, The Hunters Lodge.

(more…)