Cavers: John Kavanagh, Petie.

Time: 3.5 hours

An SUI meting in Cahir provided a good opportunity to return to Rooska so on Saturday morning JK and I rowed up to the cave entrance with digging, photography and surveying kit. A bit of rain the previous few days had put a tiny stream through the cave where previously there had been a dry channel. The first digging location was at the far east side of the cave where a flake of rock split the passage in two - on the left of the flake was a squeeze that had been dug out in the past and looked to be too tight and awkward and to the right was a thin flake blocking the way. The lump hammer was brought up and we began hammering the thin flake. After about 10 mins this was shattered and I could squeeze over the top and into the passage beyond. This looked unpromising but was still going in several directions so JK headed back for the surveying gear which I'd pessimistically left behind, doubting that we'd be able to get through the choke. In the meantime I removed the remains of the flake and began hammering a crack where I could see into a parallel rift. Luckily I'd rigged up a lanyard that kept the lump hammer in my muddy greasy hands and I could wallop away to my hearts content. When JK returned we began surveying in the hopelessly muddy conditions. What we'd broken into was a tight maze of small awkward rifts. The main way on rather unfortunately terminated when the rift narrowed abruptly but it doglegged sharply to the left and seemed to continue largish. A capping assault would be required. The air here seemed quite fresh. Further back JK took off enough of the sides of the crack for me to peer into the rift, which was reasonably big, through there doesn't seem to be much hope of it going anywhere. In all we surveyed 20m of passage, and there was about 8m of stuff we didn't measure.