After five days of hut improvements during the Working Week, it was time for some caving with the annual underground fun and charred food fest that is the Summer Barbecue Weekend.
Members arriving early embarked on the first trip of the summer barbecue weekend with a Daren to Cnwc through trip on Friday. The glorious week of sunshine was still in full swing on Saturday, making the proposed trip to Little Neath River Cave seem even more appealing. However, it transpired that the Neath Valley had endured nothing but rain for the last number of days, so a new plan was hatched to visit the other interesting caves of the valley. This was great fun, and started with an investigative visit to see the submerged entrance of Little Neath River Cave before moving on to Bridge Cave, which sported a streamway more dynamic than usual. Afterwards the smaller caves of Pwll y Rhyd, White Lady Cave and Town Drain were visited on a journey through this scenic valley.
Meanwhile another very different trip was being undertaken in Ogof Craig a Ffynnon, with an investigation of a previously unscaled aven in the Lower Series. After passing through the Hall of the Mountain King and Severn Tunnel, the route to the Lower Series was taken and the pitch rigged for SRT. A bolt climb was then scaled and all possible leads beyond pushed to conclusion, then with time in hand for a bit of tourist caving, Helectite Passage and the Pagoda were visited.
Elsewhere in Llangattock a small breakthrough was had by another CSS party while revising the cave descriptions for Pwll y Pasg and Ogof Newport. Much of Ogof Newport was found to have disappeared under collapse, but new chambers were found to replace it on the other side of the entrance chamber. The team then moved on to Pwll y Pasg and explored the connection to Ogof Llungwyn and the route to the aptly named Parsnip formations in the Parsnip Palace.
Obviously no Whitewalls meet would be complete without a trip to Aggy, and one of these also took place on the Saturday with a journey along Main Stream Passage as far as North West Junction. Other members spent the day enjoying the sunshine with walks and climbing around Llangattock. All teams were back in time for a feast of barbecue foods in the Whitewalls garden, followed by a slide show presentation of highlights from last year’s club trip to Slovenia. Sunday saw a caving trip to see the wonders of Ogof Capel, while others went for walks in the sun or continued work on the cottage.
