Christmas Bash 23

It was a chilly one this year, with frosty frozen ground the whole weekend. 

Welly Filler at Inglesport then on to Bull Pot Farm for a late start. John, Miranda, Chris H, Jason headed to Wretched for a through trip to Lancaster, while Sophie, Tom, Scott and Pete rigged Lancaster for a trip in the opposite direction.

When we reached the big caverns on the high level route (never know which one is which) Sophie cracked out her stove and brewed up some mulled wine which went down a treat. The mince pies had barely survived their journey but were still welcome in our mouths. 

We cracked on, possibly hearing the other team heading the other way in the streamway below us at one point (they were 20 vertical metres away from getting in on the wine!) and after bumping in to a few folks around Stop Pot we made our way out of Wretched. 

We headed back to the farm to warm back up and get some food on. Cracking chili from Sophie, which we shared with some shivering NCHECC students who’d had a hard day of it, and then a feast of sticky toffee cake and Cuthbert the Caterpillar, with Gareth’s generous custard contributions.

Then it was through to the members’ lounge (thanks to Chris’ double agent status) for fireside chatting with tunes. 

On the Sunday Sophie and Miranda ran a chocolate hunt for the young’uns in Yordas which of course went down well and hopefully conditioned the next generation into thinking if they go down cold muddy holes in the ground they might get sweets.