Fairy Holes

Present Damian, Tom, Scott, James, Jasmine

It’s a bit of a drive but this cave is really worth it. Cavers can only visit on one day a month and for much of its discovered history its been part of a working quarry. In fact despite losing 600m of passageway through being quarried away its still one of the longest stream passageways in the country. 

So we parked in our allocated space and walked up to the quarry. First challenge was to find the cave. This place is huge! We wandered about eventually following a path up the side of the quarry to a stream flowing out of a grille. We had the key and unlocked this, followed by a mild wetting as we crawled through a big concrete and metal pipe. Then suddenly we were in a cave. Seemed surprising after the quarry environment. 

The cave itself is a long stream passageway where occasional rockfall has made things harder so you have to climb or go underneath. The stream way involves wading through water of varying depth. Despite wearing a wetsuit and wetsuit socks being constantly in this water it gets cold. So gradually we got a bit chilly. But despite this we got quite a long way until a constriction stopped Damian. It was a good effort but he turned round. So there were four of us left and we sloshed on. 

The walls of the cave are not so solid as there are amazing mud formations everywhere formed of thick layers of mud. This is a nice change from all that clean Yorkshire limestone. Eventually we got to a bit where Scott and Tom turned around. The cave seemed endless at this time, we all had cold feet apart from Jasmine who was pretty much 50% neoprene. BUT it was shortly after this point that the cave changed in character and me and Jasmine were in  higher level passages following white dots. Crawling along sweating buckets. The warmth got my enthusiasm going again and we pushed on. Many interesting formations were encountered and Easegillish type Chambers were passed. At last we got in the streamway again and followed it to the end where it seemed impassible and awkward and our map went no further.

We turned round and made a retreat for the next 3 hours. Caution was thrown away and we dived through ducks and wet bits with enthusiasm because we knew the others would be waiting and we’d been ages. I saw a blind cave fish, which i subsequently found the cave is famous for. Then eventually we emerged from the pipe into the freezing air and darkness. Chilly times on the walk out. Mercifully Tom had heated seats for the way home. Luxury.

A great trip but we found out later that it wasn’t the real end to the cave. In recent years the removal of some mud has allowed explorers to get even further. So a reason to return. 

Thanks Damian for sorting out the access and organizing the trip.