When Sarah invited us to spend the night with Robin’s Shaft, I was taken aback.
Once we’d resolved the misunderstanding, we set a date and one night me, Judith, Sarah and Kim headed to Robin’s Shaft *Mine*.
Here are the good parts of the trip:
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Two people saw a sleeping flying marsupial. Shat themselves and left it to sleep.
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Lord’s chamber is genuinely impressive. It’s almost sandstone natural passage. It feels like canyon passage
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The walk-in from the cars is only 50m.
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The 100m shaft creates a peanut sized sense of awe
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The Rebelays are, in fairness, all mostly sited with nice standing ledges below them
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Kim went to the end of the old SUSS dig and returned with most of the mud on her.
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There was a interesting drainage line funneling water out of the shaft into a side passage
And the less good bits:
‘ It is a long ass shaft with nothing good about it
‘A specific member of the team would like all deviations to go forth and multiply. Or to be specific, to not multiply.
‘ There was a risk of high CO2 content and low O2, so we carried a gas meter. As it happened, we didn’t experience O2 levels below 20% which was good, but it was on my mind.
‘ Ascending was neither SRT, scrambling, or anything else – just annoying and awkward. (The shaft is on a 45 degree angle)
‘ There was a lot of SRT faff for extremely little of interest
It was a successful trip, and we returned with everyone, everything and no major drama, but neither me nor Sarah can see ourselves repeating it.
Be warned, or be intrigued, but whatever you do, don’t invite me for round two on Robin’s Shaft – we’ve had our fill and we’ll pass for now thanks.
Originally posted on this post on Instagram
