Valley Entrance to Rowten Passage

Tom, Maz, Jason, Connor, Damian, Scott

I’d been looking forward to donning the neoprene and exploring the wet stuff in the Kingsdale Master Cave for a while.  Going upstream at the Master Junction never seems to appeal much on the way out of Swinsto or Simpsons, and this bit of passage had always looked a bit unenticing, so I suggested it for the summer meets list, thinking that at least the water wouldn’t be too chilly.

As it happened, a massive traffic jam delayed me on the nominated evening (and robbed us of Dave’s company), so I was about an hour late to the cave. I kitted up in a hurry and completed a real speed run through Valley Entrance – this was surprisingly thrilling, and should be repeated sometime – just in time to catch the others up at the Rowten Sumps.

There was a bit of back-and-forthing going on at the prospect of committing to the first sump, but neoprene hoods were being brandished, which seemed like a promising sign, so I had a feel around with my feet.  Sure enough, there was space and air on the other side, so I slid through into a spacious airbell.  Soon I was joined by Connor and Tom.  The next diveline went off to the left, and seemed a bit more committing. Legend has it that this sump is 4m long, which doesn’t sound too bad; but there was zero visibility, and Connor’s exploratory dive didn’t reveal much, so we reluctantly(?) left this one for another day when we were feeling a bit braver.

On the way out Damian crawled off for a look at the start of the Mud River series, and we found the other sump on the right which eventually links into the end of Philosopher’s Crawl.

Before too long we were back at the pitch, and then out into the warm night air with the tantalising possibility of the Marton Arms still being open…

Nice little trip, thanks to everyone who came along.  Can recommend this route for anyone who has dirty gear and needs a rinse off!