Last autumn Judith and me attempted to keep the unofficial Caving Crew motto “every hole’s a goal” alive with a happy surface walk through Stoney Middleton Dale. We visited:
Layby Shelter:
Judith’s opinion: “uninspiring toilet crawl, not much to recommend”
Deliberately not named Mine:
Judith fell for the game of “Catch!!” much to my mirth, and we explored the artifact-ridden mini level.
Hangover Hole:
The walk to this was vile. A tree clearly marked with reflective paint helped in no way whatsover, so lots of slip sliding in the darkness up vertical brambles occurred. This was made up for when we found the entrance: covered in brambles and stuffed full of cave spiders. I believe there are supposed to be good reasons to return, but I’m not convinced.
Hale Bopp pot:
We had a good look for this, assisted by the GPS and I feel like we were where entrance should be, but maybe a collapse/landslide has covered the entrance? We didn’t try digging. We didn’t find it.
Paracetam’ole:
Further up the hill than we first believed, the entrance was marked with scaff bar. Quite soon in, the entrance dig looked sketchier than a Donald Trump colouring book and went through a low bit. We decided we’d find out if it was worth it first.
Strawberry Hole:
This location has disputed location, but we found the hole on the metres to the left of the Horseshoe Quarry approach path. We then went looking for the “other” location (possibly Hobbit Hole) but got bored when we discovered it was at the bottom of some cliffs.
Bagshot Row
We had a good nosey into Bagshot Row – a pleasant dig in a phreatic tube. Nothing particularly to recommend a trip, but quite a pleasant crawl if you’re passing.
(Continued below)
Originally posted on this post on Instagram
