Going Underground by Alf Alderson

So, there we were, scrabbling around in a space that felt about 6 inches square when someone said, “Does this route have a ‘grade’ - like in climbing?”

“Oh yes, it’s grade two” replied our instructor Andrew.

“And what do they go up to?”

“Grade five”.

In which case I could only assume that the people who can manage a grade five route had moles for parents.

As well as scrabbling we were also, crawling, shuffling, scratching, creeping and butting our way along one of the labyrinth of passageways in Eglwys Faen cave which penetrates deep into the heart of the Llangattock Escarpment in the mountains of Wales’ Brecon Beacons.

You may wonder where the ‘butting’ bit comes from. Well, when you’re not used to assuming the contortions required to negotiate a space that seems only slightly wider and just as convoluted as your toilet’s ‘u’ bend, you do a lot of butting. With your head (be thankful for hard hats even if they make you look uncool - and who’s to see in the bowels of the earth anyway?), your elbows, your knees and perhaps more than anything your bum. It’s not a case of “does my bum look big in this?” when you go caving - whether it does or not it will certainly feel big.

Of course, you can butt all you want, several million tons of limestone isn’t going to respond to it, so it’s not long before you learn to tuck and squeeze the whole lot in and make like a hedgehog in a car headlight i.e small.

‘We’ consisted of four hardy outdoor types from London who had all spent plenty of time on the world’s hills and mountains but were new to exploring beneath them: Dave # 1, a curator of mineralogy at the Natural History Museum, Dave # 2, a palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum (so this would be like a field trip for them), Gill, manager of a leisure centre and Corrina, a business intelligence consultant (whatever that means…).

Being from the Big Smoke the obvious cheesy comparisons soon started to some out about going underground. The four of them had driven up that morning from London, and totally unprompted Corinna remarked on how easy the journey had been - only a little longer than it takes to get from one side of the city to the other in the rush hour, in fact (but not on the Underground, of course). Which just goes to show that the great outdoors of Wales as well as the great underground of Wales are nearer than you think - Big Breakfast at 7.00 am - big hole in the ground at 12.00 am.

Before the two Daves, Gill and Corinna could dive into the dank, dark depths of Eglwys Faen, however, they had to kit up in caving ‘suits’ plus head lamp, battery pack etc. Just like going to work really - put on the suit then underground - at which point we decided to forget all about the underground comparisons before someone ended up being left down there without a light and with only a stale crust and a flask of water as punishment for making appalling jokes and puns.

The main entrance to Eglwys Faen is a door-sized portal which opens into a cavern about the size of a small Welsh chapel, which is appropriate really as in times past persecuted religious groups held services here. Hence the name, which translates into English as ‘place of the church’.

As you move further into the cave there’s a smaller cavern off to the right where you can see graffiti that dates back to the16th century. There’s also more modern stuff - nothing rude or particularly witty, you understand, just people’s names with dates. It’s interesting to see how much more stylish was the hand writing of a century or two ago.

If you continue straight on from the main chamber, however, you come to what appears to be a solid blank wall of rock - until you look to your feet where you’ll see a gap appears. A gap, as Gill said, which looked “about the size of a post box”. Be that as it may, we were going to crawl into it, or to be technical, we were about to embark on a ‘flat out crawl’.

This is the point at which you turn back if you’re the slightest bit claustrophobic. The gap - in reality about two feet high and accessible to most people has plenty of width, allowing us to spread our arms and legs for purchase as we scrabbled through. However, you can’t help thinking that there’s an awful lot of rock above you, like half a cliff, and that although Andrew had assured us that it hadn’t moved in millions of years, there’s always going to be a point when it does move. Fortunately it wasn’t today.

After a good deal of grunting and shuffling everyone emerged unscathed on the other side into another spacious chamber, where the Stygian gloom (a phrase that you must use at least once in talking about caving) gave way beneath the glare of our head lamps to reveal - a metal ladder going up to who knew where? Well Andrew and his assistant Rhian, actually, but they weren’t telling us.

This was also where ‘dankness’ - of which there’d actually been very little so far, as these are pretty dry caves - gave way to dampness. In fact wetness, not to put too fine a point on it. Limestone caves, as are those at Llangattock, are formed by the erosive action over many millennia of dilute carbonic acid carried in rainwater passing through joints and bedding planes in the rock, enlarging them until they eventually form caves and passages. This being the case it was perhaps inevitable that at some point we would come across said H20, dripping and dribbling down rock faces and the back of our necks. As we ascended the rusted metal ladder up into a series of passageways called The Warren we began to look like real cavers - wet, muddy and generally covered in cack. And everyone was enjoying it.

This tiny passage way continued for about 35 miles as we crawled and bumped our way along (ok, a couple of hundred meters then) and it was possible to see the way water had eroded the sides into smooth, aquiline lines. This, of course, was way back in the mists of time, which was a good thing as we were wet enough already.

Eventually we crawled to a point where we could crawl no further, for the simple reason that solid rock lay before us. So being in a slightly larger space than heretofore (about the same proportions as a well-appointed rabbit hutch, appropriate really in a ‘warren’) we gathered around and had a rest. Yes, caving might not be fast or furious but it’s certainly strenuous.

It was here that we decided to turn our lights out to discover exactly what total blackness ‘looks’ like. We’ve all been under our bed sheets as kids to give ourselves the thrill of scuttling around in the dark, but that kind of blackness is, literally, child’s play. What we encountered was a darkness that is beyond dark - you can see absolutely nothing - no tiny chink of light creeps around a corner or seeps in from a crack in the rocks to remind you that it’s daylight outside, you are immersed totally in absolute darkness. You eyes play tricks on you - you think you can see a fade of light here or there - but try raising your hand in front of your face and you’ll be touching your eyelashes and still can’t see anything. Not exactly the great outdoors as we’d all come to know it.

I think everyone was probably quite relieved to turn their light on again, although whether this relief carried through to having to retrace our tracks back through the cave is doubtful. However, the prospect of a healthy lunch awaiting us in the Main Chamber did the trick, and the journey back definitely seemed shorter than the journey out - and I’m sure we didn’t inadvertently take a short cut (Gill was doing the map reading so it’s her to thank if we did).

After lunch the London crew scurried off back underground again - perhaps in training for work the following week (sorry). Myself and photographer Mark had to head off to other engagements in Pembrokeshire and in many ways I quite envied the others. Sure, plenty of other people have been down the passageways and crevices of Eglwys Faen before, but there’s a certain sense of discovery to be found even in our modest caving attempts, because not only do you not know what’s coming around the next corner, you can’t even see it.

And to be honest it’s nothing like the Underground at all - it’s much more exciting.