Post date: May 21, 2010 6:11:19 PM

Eoghan Mullen, Stephen Macnamara & Stephen McCullagh

Trip Time: 11 hours

The internet was down so I wasn't sure if I would meet the Steves in Fermanagh; I decided to drive up early Sat morning anyway. When I got across the border I tracked them down and we got rope (no ladder) and brekkie and cleared the bowels in preparation of a long day.

We geared up and got underground around 12. All reaching the bottom at about 1.30 where we took only the harnesses of our SRT kits and one set of jammers (lucklily one chest harness was taken). We headed through the crawls and then abbed down into the muddy chambers. Soon we were negotiating the squeeze which traps longer legs - a few hammer blows made it manageable for 'long people'. The duck proved knee and elbow wet but not chest, and after a bit more up and over we were through the first boulder choke.

20 m later we were in a chamber with a few routes off it, several to the sumps. We started surveying from this point on and were soon in the next chamber which, if you go up you will see a mudcake with "TF :-)" on it. Up here is the wrong way; go back to the passage and go over and down through boulders on the left, to a lower passage with a dry mud curving 'canyon'. After 40 m you come to smaller squeeze chambers, where the way on is into the squeeze proper or up and to the left into a big boulder chamber with two chambers off it. Directly up here is the dragon (hidden at the back of the high chamber, in under the back wall and marked by a circle of rocks/mud). It is small and delicate and about finger size.

The Dragon

We continued on through the squeeze, which is tight at start, and out into bigger wet, muddy chambers, rejoining the stream which hadn't been seen since we started surveying.

The chambers finish after 70 m in a blocked squeeze. Steve Muh pushed this by bashing the 'skittles' and pulling one forward so that he could get through. He ended up in a rebirth-type crawl with a stream its bottom, which got too tight. In getting through, he dropped the hammer and couldn't retrieve it without a 'litter-picking' arm. I tried but blocked the squeeze up by pushing one skittle boulder back into its slot.

We got fed on Penguins and did a little poking around in an aven chamber 10 m back from the squeeze, and broke through into a smaller chamber 8 m up, which closed down again. The chamber shows an eyelet passage coming in at an angle; it is full of boulders but with definite possiblities of finding a way through. This could possibly be a side passage.

It being 8pm, we decided to exit and got out very tired and muddy at 11.00 ready for the drive home. I was on my own to Dublin and I reached home at 2.20. The lads were swapping driving frequently to avoid the dreaded sleep; I untangled me hair to help me stay awake. A long, tiring, successful day. Survey here.

Eoghan