France
81
by John Watson
A joint B.E.C. cum W.C.C. contingent embarked for
Having braved the English Channel we arrived at
We arrived in the
Jeff had brought with him a French Caving Book, containing
some of the
Initially the cave consisted of a large passage, 15 feet wide and some 20 - 30 foot high, leading past several climbs and a tricky, muddy traverse, to what looks like the limit of the cave - a large choked passage containing what used to be a fine grotto, but now severely damaged by souvenir hunters. A systematic search was made for a possible continuation. A passage, small by French standards, was followed for some 200 feet as an inclined rift. Caving in wetsuits we were beginning to sweat in unmentionable parts, and wondered whether to pursue our goal or take the easy option and turn back, but, like all keen Mendip cavers, we continued. After another 150 feet we were back in the main passage beyond the choke. The climb down to this passage was helped by a conveniently placed log. The passage upslope terminated at another grotto with some fine, large stal, whilst downslope was the way on. We were soon confronted by a river of mud, similar to Tynings but on a grander scale. Slow progross was made in this glutinous mud, until a small chamber with some fine white pretties was reached. We pressed on. The mud became deeper - knee deep in places. At one point I nearly lost a tightly laced boot, whilst Pete decided to go for a mud-bath. Finally we were confronted with a large void, a chamber 100 feet in diameter and 50 - 70 feet high, dominated in one corner by a huge stal boss, with a column on top some 20 feet high and 15 feet wide at its base. After a short rest we followed the chamber downslope to a very muddy sump. A passage was followed leading off the chamber, which led to another, smaller chamber, similar in shape and size to Chamber 3 in Wookey, but that was where the similarity ended, for the rock was festooned with hundreds of stalactites, one to three feet long. A closer examination made all the mud worthwhile - in between the stal were hundreds of thousands of eccentrics branching off in all directions like tightly baled straw. The trip took just over two and a half hours but for those who like revelling in mud it was a classic and its vast forest of eccentrics would be hard to beat anywhere.
The following morning we embarked for the
From
The day after visiting Emite we went to the Grotte de Sabart, which virtually consists of a huge chamber, one of the biggest in France, some 650 feet long and 200 feet wide. We were dwarfed by its huge stal, one column being 30 feet high and 5 - 10 feet in diameter.
From Tarascon we made our way to Villefranche de Confluence,
an old, walled, medieval town. Having
set up camp we took a wander round this quaint old town and were very surprised
to find a Speleo headquarters. Consulting Jeff's book once more we planned to do the Grotte de Gorner,
a large system some 14km long, and one of the finest caves in
The following morning we were up bright and early and parked
near to the cave. After an hour's wait a
car drew up full with what looked like cavers. They were totally dumbfounded when we tried, to explain to them that
they were taking us caving. They
immediately told us that it was not possible, so we tried to explain to them
that their president had OK'd it. Words
were fast and furious and confusion reigned. The leader pointed to our car and we followed him back into town. This went on for about an hour. We told them we had our own gear, at which
point they relented and we drove back to the cave entrance, heads thumping with
confusion. Our French friends found it
very amusing when we donned our wetsuits. This was followed by numerous gesticulations and tugging of boiler suits
- I think he thought we would be too hot. I explained that all English cavers wore wetsuits. All this commotion had attracted a large
crowd. Within minutes we were surrounded
by dozens of amused French speleos (by way of comparison the leader, who never
stopped talking, wore a boiler suit and a woolly hat, and had a hand held
torch). The entrance to the cave was
like
After lunch we were taken down a French dig? I was under the impression that the French did not dig for caves - a huge misconception - as it would have put any Mendip dig to shame. We had been told by our French friends that the cave was very small, and that we would be better off to carry torches rather than carbides. By this time Jeff started to worry. The entrance was a sandy crawl similar in dimensions to Cwm Dwr entrance series. Anything small, i.e. squeezes, had been blasted to leave a comfortable sized passage whose draught threw us into darkness many times. After 250 feet a small chamber was reached, where an inlet made the going wet. The end was reached after 350 feet. The way on could be seen, tight and. wet. This was not pushed, since we were clad in T-shirts. Very impressed, we followed the compressed air hose out to the entrance. It was later explained that it had taken eleven years to reach the end. The potential, however, is enormous.
After the trip we retired to the bar, swapped addresses and said farewell to our French counterparts.
The following day we left the