Last year, Mum and me took my 10 year old nephew to Bagshawe and he loved it.
Bagshawe Cavern was my first ever caving trip – for my 9th birthday. We did the classic trip, and I loved it. (For my next birthday, we did Carlswark, and I thought it was wank and we didn’t go caving again for the next 15 years.)
Well my Nephew #5 had done a little with cubs, heard about his grandma Judith and uncle Tim’s caving, seen the mountains of equipment and wanted a go.
It turned out Nephew #5 (age 10) is an expert on caves. For the entire trip, he was telling me how he knew this cave, how this main passage gets tighter and tighter, and how the midnight zombie elves lived in the cave and liked eating people like me, as he lead me through the cave.
I say lead, I mean, it was a bit like Sonic the Hedgehog arrived in Bagshawe and decided to do a speed run through it. He went R-A-P-I-D-L-Y. Poor Grandma Judith, usually used to a leisurely look at the stal now sat at any spare moment to breathe, whilst the cave-explorer stuck his head into a unknown hole to explore.
“I wish there were more bigger caves than this”, he said.
“You’re in luck!” I said, powering to keep up with the wannabe subterranean fell runner.
Three things slowed him down:
- Water
- Squeezes
- Steps up
Water was cold, squeezes were “too small” for his tiny torso and I was grateful that I have better cardio fitness than him
When he encountered some mud, the first thing he tried to do was throw as much as possible at my back, before launching himself down the slide.
When I knew he was a true caver was afterwards though – I heard he happily ate my mum’s old, stone cold, fish and chips. Only a true caver would do something so disgusting!
“We could do this ever Friday” he said,
“Errr yes, would you like that?”, I replied
“Yes, it was super fun”
So, err, stay tuned I guess!
Originally posted on this post on Instagram
