Boundary Pot – À la recherche du tacklesack perdu

Jason

On a previous trip my tacklesack, with quite a lot of gear, had disappeared in the flood in Boundary Pot.  An Aygill trip was on the list, so I thought I’d go up early and see if the recent dry spell had revealed it, though I didn’t hold much hope.  Teresa reminded me of the folly of solo caving, but I assured her everyone would be delighted to come and get me out if I got stuck, rather than go to the pub….

I expected to have to do some ferreting around in water, so donned my neofleece and worked up a fine sweat marching over Casterton fell.  It was a relief to get in the cave, but there was no chance of a cooling splash.  Where there had been a waterfall pummelling us down a climb, there was hardly a trickle now.  I soon got to the crawl where we had turned round previously and as my face drew level with a hole in the floor – there it was ! 

I was delighted, and not a little amazed, but the trouble was that the hole was some 2m deep and too narrow to contemplate trying to squeeze into.  I hadn’t anticipated this, but I tried dangling a krab on the end of my belt, with the gate held open with the elastic from my spare light, to try and hook the tacklesack handle.  Quite ingenious, I thought, but it wouldn’t quite reach.

Conscious that I’d left a call-out note on my car, I left and yomped back over the fell to find my mates arriving for Aygill.  Did anyone have a fishing-rod, or long stick ?  No – why didn’t I try in the farm ?  So I did, meeting a friendly group of Belgian cavers, and I explained the problem in franglais (j’ai perdu mon sac, il est … at the bottom of a hole).  They were game for some fun and soon found a coat hanger, and some copper plumbing pipe.  This looked promising, but how to connect the two?  An appeal to Mr Gordon yielded some insulating tape, shoelaces and a tent peg from his van, so fully equipped, I set off back to Boundary.

The tent peg taped to the pipe proved to be an excellent fishing rod, although the pipe did need some bending to get it down the hole, and some more to get it out – but it worked first time and to my great joy, the Crunchie was intact in its waterproof box, so I celebrated by eating it (I later found my GPS and everything else none the worse for its underwater spell).  I exited with a light heart and returned again to the farm.  The Aygill trip was still in progress, so I dropped in to see the visiting party to pass on the good news and thank them for their help – to which they added by pressing a bottle of Belgian beer into my grateful hand. 

They’d had a splendid few days caving: exchanges from Top Sink to Wretched Rabbit and Flood Entrance to Bar Pot.  I assured them that the glorious weather we were having was typical for Yorkshire.  By this time, folk were returning from Aygill, so it was a quick change and off to the Whoop.

So, a most rewarding trip, even though I spent less than an hour underground in total!

As I was awarded Cock-Up Ken for losing the tacklesack in the first place, I now consider that I can justly reject and repudiate the award, so Richard’s original suggestion of awarding him to the Committee for carelessly mislaying a Treasurer should stand!