Caving by Elizabeth

On Thursday afternoon, we went caving!  Before we left, our instructor Paul said to us to wear warm clothes because it would be cold in the caves.  After that, we went up to our dorms (ours was called Lewis) and changed into warm clothes.

 

In about fifteen minutes, we went to the backyard to get some old waterproofs because Paul didn't want to get the waterproofs we were using to get damaged.  Then me, Tom, Jane and Luke and went to the minibus.  Since we had gone gorge walking in the morning, we had left our helmets on the seats.

 

Meanwhile Johnny was looking for his gloves so we were just playing, 'Who was going to get to the gigantic,shiny quartz' if you wanted to know who won, it was Maia who popped up out of nowhere.  It felt like years, even decades just waiting for Johnny!

 

Eventually Johnny came and we were off.  On the way there, we saw some dolphin tails (they weren't real of course).  We also saw a swan (this time it was real).  While we were singing, we came across the bumpy road, it was super fun.

 

Finally was got to the forest where the caves were but Paul suddenly remembered that he had forgotten his helmet. We all hoped that we could go back on the bumpy road so we all happy but our happiness was sucked on by Paul when he said he had brought a spare helmet.   Paul gave us a torch each and told us how to put it on. To be honest, it was really hard to switch on. 

 

Slowly we began hiking up the hill, after about five minutes Paul showed us the bones of a deer, he told us they still have no idea what had happened to it.  We finally had a rest at a gigantic rock were he told us to practice in a small tunnel.  When it my turn, I got on my knees and crawled into the small tunnel, it was muddy and quite a squeeze but we all managed to do it.  After that we eagerly climbed up to the caves.

 

 Eventually we went into the cave, the first thing we saw was what we thought was gold but it was actually a type of algae with raindrops on it, which made it shiny.  In the cave it was all damp and wet. Paul all helped us climb up into 'The Attic' (a very big space in the caves), when we got up there we turned our torches off to see how dark it actually was, and it was very dark, as dark as the night without the moon or stars to lighten up it up. When we turned the torches back on, Paul told us we had two choices, one of them was to go down 'St Thomas' passage' and through the 'Post Box' or wait for him in 'The Attic' and go back down the way we went up here.   Most of us decided to go down 'St Thomas's passage' only Toby didn't go.  When I went in, my helmet got stuck halfway through,'why now'  I thought to myself but Luke helped me to get my helmet out. 

 

 Everyone was waiting when Toby came and we were off again down the hill, going downhill was proving harder than it was going uphill.

 

On the way back on the bus Ms Ingles each gave us fruit pastilles and Chewys and we saw the swan again.  We had had a great day.