Robinson’s Pot

Will Burnett (3rd KCC trip), Vikki & Ray

Despite there being a lot of interest in this trip, injuries and other commitments conspired to reduce the number of attendees to 3. Damian, our nominated leader for the day, was gutted that injury prevented him from joining us.

The drive over to the pot is reasonably long, but this is more than compensated by the scenery. A quick courtesy call at the farm confirmed that we were ok to descend. Apparently the lady in residence has never been into the cave… and has absolutely no intention of ever being. She was, however, very friendly.

For anyone who hasn’t been, the entrance is in a most unusual location – directly under the kitchen window of the farm. A very small manhole leads directly onto the entrance pitch, about 7m long and best laddered. The pitch immediately opens out into a spacious shaft, rather worryingly directly below the farm kitchen. As requested, the last person down the pitch replaced the manhole cover and secured it to a rock at the bottom of the pitch, using the convenient in situ rope and a helpful anchor in said rock. Apparently this prevents the curious farm kit falling down the shaft.

Below the pitch, the entrance series is fairly interesting, consisting of various rifts, crawls and climbs with quite a few inlets to poke up. I think we managed to poke up every single one. At one point, just after a (not unpleasant) crawl in a muddy tube, we were unsure of the way on. Will poked up one way and Ray another (leaving the tackle sack with rope and ladder for the later pitch/climb). Ray’s way turned out to be correct, but was a flat out crawl over cobbles in a small stream. Emerging into the relative vastness of MacColl’s Rift, Ray shouted back for the others to follow. Unfortunately, poor communication led to the sack being left behind. So, while Will & Vikki explored MacColl’s rift, Ray went back through the (unpleasant) flat out crawl to retrieve it.

MacColl’s Rift is a nice bit of passage, with larger sections punctuated by the odd crawl or climb. It was a bit muddy in places, leading to the occasional bit of hilarity trying to squirm up slopes. We noted the Crossover Passage leading to the streamway, but pushed on to the end of the rift, before returning. The Crossover Passage starts as a crawl, but soon increases in height to become more of a rift, taking a small stream. At the end is a short (3m?) climb down into the main streamway. This climb was pre-rigged with a handline, which we used. So there had been no need to return for the sack after all!

The streamway is very nice indeed, with the odd decorated bit. We started by going downstream, which led relatively quickly to the inevitable downstream sump. Turning left just before the sump led into a low, wet crawl. We followed this (led by Will) to another sump with quite a bit of diving kit strewn about. Presumably this is actively being pushed at present.

We then headed upstream in the main streamway. This goes on for quite a bit further and is really a very nice bit of passage. Eventually the roof starts to lower and the water gets deeper. Ray pushed this to the upstream sump for some unfathomable reason.

We then made our way out at a leisurely pace. There was nothing to explore on the way out as we had pushed every bit of navigable passage on the way in, so before long we were back out into the scorching sunshine for the short walk back to the car.

Robinson’s is a great trip… and one that I would happily do again before too long. As this was Will’s 3rd club trip, he expressed an interest in joining as a full member. No objections from me – we’re lucky to have him!

Photos by Will and Ray.