Jessica Hitchcock and Amy Reaper
June 2007
The day began with a lazy drive up Constantia neck for the Hitchcocks, the Swarts and Amy Grim Reaper, leaving us in prime caving condition. The Cave Nymphs (Jess and Amy), felt reluctant to dive straight into the dark, damp and deep so warmed up slightly by showing the old men how its done with a speedy connection of Canadian and Shallow Cave. We had every intention of retiring for the day, however were reluctantly coaxed into another venture by ’Super Star’ ★ Stuart ★ (Jepson)! This promising new cave boasted a ’far out’ drop requiring four 7m ladders after which when our ladder supply ran dry we were forced to chim-chim-in-ney the last 4m to the floor. Teeth chattering we set out to explore the vertical passage only to discover an extremely familiar piece of metal and graffiti. Jess soon pieced this together as that of our recent exploration of the Hangman’s - Bats connection. Although Amy was quick to join in the celebrations Stuart however needed some explaining to catch on, but when he did, they did celebrate by eating lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals and fruit bats. And then within the counting of three, no more, no less was Stuart bouncing through the cave once more towards Bats/Giants to share the news with his favouritist of all favouritist buddies, Mario. We arrived at the top entrance/ Helms Deep to pass on the news to the awaiting old age home.
Helm’s Deep, or so called by The Cave Nymphs, has great potential for further exploration as there are many horizontal passages shooting off from the vertical shaft. It will be tricky but there is nothing that The Cave Nymphs and ’Super Star’ ★ Stuart ★, can’t handle.
Written by Amy and Jess assisted by the Monty Python Crew