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Writer's pictureRaymond Bell

Co.Clare trip with USSCC

Attending cavers:

Raymond

Mags

Lukas

Tomek (Gienek)

Dominika (Grażyna)

Mark

Christopher

Liam(never made it)


Early departure on a Friday for first lot Chris Ray and Mark. Myself and rest of polish community left a little bit later. 4,5h of twisty bumpy roads, passing beautiful but absolutely dead villages of county Clare,we have arrived to Corofin. Cute village with pubs,shops handy and whole hostel to ourselves....You couldn't ask for a better set up.

On our arrival we have all met in the pub across the road. Chris had kindly preordered food so we didn't have to wait. Pints were going in smoothly and we had great time.

Saturday morning we started sorting gear before heading off to Poullnagollum cave and that's when we discovered that we're short a helmet and a suit! Oops! I've decided that I'll stay but Chris quickly looked up nearest open farm shops, while Ray was trying to use his connections to borrow the gear. We ended up with Lukas caving in boiler suit and bicycle helmet with big red light flashing on the back of his head and caving torch neatly duck taped into it.

Mark rigged entrance while we were voluntary eaten by midgets. Few meters of crawling we got into ledges above river bed. Once down in water we just followed the stream. With waterfalls and beautiful formations everywhere we reached a rope hanging from the middle of the ceiling. Of course it didn't take long to find Ray climbing up it to check where it lead. It was a traverse line at the top ,leading to a passage inaccessible for us amateurs. We decided to turn back from that point as we were getting cold.

Outside, we got changed into dry clothes, except for Lukas who forgot his change of clothes and ended up wearing robe/hoody. I really felt like going for a swim since we weren't far from the beach but we ended up getting some food and then heading to cliffs of moher (12€ pp what a rip of! Lukas still in his robe😂) after taking few shots of what nature had to offer, Chris suggested walking to Doolin along the cliffs. There wasn't many followers. It took us(myself Lukas and Chris)an hour to do 7.5km and we still didn't get to Doolin hahaha... Folks were getting impatient so they picked us up to head back.

Village was bouncing with live music! Night was warm and it had good vibe. We sorted out gear and sat outside with beers until late.

Sunday Lukas Tomek and Dominika went home and rest of us headed to Doolin cave(St.Cathrines to Fisherstreet) as we weren't fulfilled by Saturday's caving. Mark and I were dropped off at the entrance (nearly eaten by Jess the dog that thought it owns the land!) , Chris and Ray drove to the exit to rig our way out. Mark and I entered the cave and made our way forward but after maybe 20min we could hear boys catching up with us. After crawling and few squeezes we reached river bed and followed the currant. Clare's cave remind me a lot of Yorkshire caves. Very high ceilings and twisty bendy passages, all looking pretty much the same. Although there was something different about this cave how it turned out later when I was at the lead. Suddenly I thought I've seen eyes looking at me with this alien like face. I thought my imagination is playing tricks but no! I was right,there was something looking and swimming away. Unexpected companion was an eel or eels as we discovered further down. And then some other white fish. They were very friendly since they had no enemies in the cave. After a wee break we got ready for our last crawl in very dirty and stinky water to 10m pitch.

Happy after another day in cave we headed back home.

Many thanks to Ray for organizing the trip and accomodation. To Chris and Tomek for doing driving duties and to all the rest for great company! 🍻 here is to many more adventures with USSCC.

**YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST**