One Huge Adventure, was held at Bristol Schools Camp Exmouth. We had some 70 plus young people who engaged in adventurous activities for the week - total in camp around 100. Jon, Andy, Harri & I delivered the cadet programme. @RichM: An interesting week where we delivered a full and varied programme of adventurous activities to young people, formal debrief will identify any learning points. From a personal point of view it was a priviledge to work with a fantastic cadet leadership team and brilliant ...

A novice trip into the upper series through zig zags, short dry, wet way @JonnyC: The third in a series of Hotelscene novice trips, this time into Swildon's Upper. Unfortunately Rich managed to find somewhere better to be at the last minute, and so could not join us but was in our thoughts. However, Mr G did manage to don his wellies for a jaunt, good times. Having got changed in the luxury of the Wessex we headed out accross to the blockouse, SB has been down before but some years ago and the ent ...

Novice trip to the boulder chamber, leading 3 novices. @JonnyC: A warm sunny evening saw the perspiration point kick in very low down West Twin Brook, we meandered our way up eyeballing Avelines, Pierres, Sidcot, Tradesmans eventually to the Main Entrance of Goatchurch. After assessing the relative friction of our clothes on the slide, we descended down Giants Steps with relative ease, and dropped down into drunkards passage, a brief pause and then on up to the top of the coal chute to orientate wi ...

A pleasant trip down into Goatchurch leading a virgin and a novice to boulder chamber. @JonnyC: After struggling with West Twin Brook in the warm, and the unavoidable persperation we stopped briefly inside the main entrance to allow our eyes to adjust. We headed slowly down through the hold show cave to give Callum and Pj a go on the slide to demonstrate the relative friction of their clothing. We eased our way down through Giant's steps, splitting the novices for the largest step, past Orange Pee ...

A wander round Read's to discuss how and where we might bring a group in. @JonnyC: We bumped the van up to Read's and entered via the dry way, once inside had a play around the right dropping down toward Zed Alley, I attempted to access Zed through the constrcition but couldn't quite make it through. We headed accross to the left to descend into the boulder chamber and to have a look around before heading deep into the floor of the main chamber, down into junction chamber. A good trip, and a tho ...

Walk from our exped spot at the GunPoweder Mills to the Plume in Princetown. @JonnyC: After a relaxed breakfast and a refreshing face wash in the Cherry Brook, we packed up and headed South East, with a quick stop in the pottery to fill Rich's water bladder (having filled mine from the brook), an interesting place. Back on the hills the sun really took it's toll, my water was undrinkable despite chlorination and Rich's was going down fast, we spied a route past the Prince Hall Hotel, and decided th ...

Wild camp (within 100m of van, so not too wild) as a necessary stopover after completing Pridhamsleigh cave @JonnyC: We didn't arrive until circa 0300hrs after the caving trip, so quick setup of the two man tent down by the quarry and straight to bed. Gorgeous morning the next day spurred us into drying our caving kit on the carpark floor before failing miserably and cooking Tesco Finest porridge.

Pleasant walk from Princetown up through to Wistman's Wood with a couple of GC stops along the way, heading for a wild camp at the old gunpowder mill @JonnyC: After some running repairs on the GPS at the Plume (over a Jail Ale) we got our gear sorted and departed for the hills NE out of princetown. Before long we were upon the Two Bridges Hotel with the West Dart river runing beneath, there ensued some jokes about stopping for cream teas [I am not sure I was joking, they looked luverly!]. We picke ...

Overnight hammock at the GunPowder Mills near Princetown as part of a circular exped. @JonnyC: We spent a little time finding a spot where we would not be imposing on any passers by, and where the trees were suitably strong and well spaced, and proceeded to erect the hammocks. No time to hang around though, as we had paperwork to do, so we settled down with our log books and started to go through them. It didn't take long for both of us to get thoroughly fed up with the abundance of midgies, occas ...

An explore by survey of Pridhamsleigh, visiting many spots not least the lake. @RichM: A fantastic trip, very satisfying route finding and great to share a first for both of us @JonnyC: Having set out late, we didn't get to the parking spot until 2230hrs. After a quick recce to see if we would upset any locals by caving at an unsociable hour, we decided to proceed, we donned our gear, made an entry in the fees ledger and dropped our coins into the oversized money box. We spotted a logical way in, and on our way to crystal chamber we decided to skip the straightforward path through the pool a ...