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<center><h2>Expo '94</h2>

<p><i><b>by Anthony Day</b></i></center>

<blockquote>"In July 1994, CUCC mounted an expedition to explore and survey
new caves in the Totes Gebirge near Salzburg in Austria. This was the
eighteenth such expedition to Austria. Our main objective was to investigate
some of the many leads in a cave called Kaninchenh&ouml;hle, which was found
by CUCC in 1988 etc etc..."</blockquote>

<p>What a load of bollocks, and I wonder if our sponsors find it any more 
interesting than I do. "<i>CUCC go on holiday to Austria for four weeks and
do a bit of caving as well</i>" might be a more accurate summary of what
follows.

<p>As regularly happens, we were joined by a number of non-CUCC members, 
including a random American called Bob, an even more random caver from York
by the name of Ralph, and four members of the University of London Caving
Club, recently formed by CUCC member Ali Morris amongst others. We hope to
continue having ULCC guests on expeditions in future years.

<p><b>In the beginning...</b>

<p>The usual chaos associated with organising expo was compounded by the 
decision of Wookey, God of expo for the previous three years to go to Spain
instead. Through not having the wit the volunteer for one of the easy jobs,
the title of expo leader was bestowed upon Nick Proctor. To say that he
greeted the news of his new responsibility with unbridled glee would be to
entirely misrepresent the truth, and he spent the next eight months looking
as miserable as the expo treasurer. However, a month before departure, he
hatched a cunning plan to abdicate all his responsibilities by contracting
glandular fever. This meant that the start of expo was delayed by a week,
the title of expo leader was passed to a committee of Ali, Anthony, Petel
and MTS, and the harassed expo treasurer won the task of writing half a dozen
reports, of which this is one.

<p>After many frantic phone calls between Cambridge, Holmfirth, Milton 
Keynes, Southampton and the Isle of Skye, transport of people and gear out to
Austria was eventually sorted out (though at that point we didn't really
know how it was all going to get back.) The first wave of cars arrived in
Austria more or less on time (ie. on the right day), which owes more to good
fortune than the mechanical soundness of the vehicles concerned, what with 
MikeTA's bodged clutch, Ali's percussive cam shaft, and Sean's car (which was
towing the trailer) firing on only three cylinders from the moment he pulled
away from the tackle store. (Incidentally, trying to push start a car on the
dockside at Dover with a trailer still attached to it is a crap idea).

<p>There then followed two days of efficiency during which we set up top 
camp (later moved 200m down the hill after it was decided that we had shafted
the grass a bit too much), and rigged as far as Knossos and Algeria. By the
time Andy A and Helen arrived, having travelled the scenic route via a
German town that sounds a bit like Saarbr&uuml;cken thanks to Helen's
suspect navigational skills, we were prepared for a big effort on the caving
front.

<p><b>...there was the word</b>

<p>...and the word was with Festering and the word was Fester, which is
exactly what we did for two weeks. Never in the field of speleological
endeavour was so little done by so many for so long. Enthusiasm for caving
was kept to a bare minimum, being mainly confined to AndyA and MikeTA. They
introduced a variety of novices to the vast chambers and passages big enough
to drive a bus down for which Austria is renowned (or so goes the bullshit
that we had been expounding during the previous year), by taking them to a
squeeze at the end of Gnome Passage. Strangely, few of their companions could
be enticed to make a return trip. The squeeze lead to a series of rift
passages and pitches. In an effort to prove their superhero status, Andy and
Mike took our drill, Geraldine, and her outsize battery through the squeeze,
only to find that Geraldine was in a fickle mood, so they dragged the whole
shooting match out again - hence "Driller Killer" earned its name. They also
surveyed out, recording 51 survey legs. On a later trip, Andy spent 40
minutes upside down a rift whilst trying to retrieve the drill power cable.
Further trips found "Stomping," which isn't, and which eventually links back
into Vestabule, and a chamber ("Dreaming of Limo") with a number of ways on.

<p>Various abortive attempts to reach the far end were made, thwarted by
tiredness, light failure and nice-weather-induced-jacking. To nobody's great
surprise it was decided that underground camping would be too shit (though
only after all the camping gear had been carted underground) and probably
unnecessary after it was discovered that the campsite was only a four hour
round trip from the entrance.

<p>Sitting in the potato hut swatting flies and listening to "This Corrosion"
playing on continuous loop on the expo sound system became the preferred
pastime. The attractions of base camp in the sun were particularly
appreciated by those who had experienced the washout of expo '93, though I
think MTS regretted not investing in any suncream or a T-shirt with more
colour and fewer holes.

<p>The standard of base camp cuisine saw a welcome upturn, largely thanks to
keeping pissed up rhinos at a safe distance from the stove and Sean's desire
to prove that when it comes to cooking as in all aspects of expedition life,
Oxford reign supreme (though his excessive use of whole coriander giving his
slops the texture of birdseed did not meet with universal approval). The
string of lentil curries was broken by a barbecue to celebrate Ali's
birthday, at which the standing of the caving community was further enhanced
in the eyes of the Gasthof residents by the raucous singing, loud stereo, and
particularly by Ralph chundering all over their urinal.

<p>Meanwhile, Anthony and others spent 70 caver hours in France finding that
the big pitch near the top of Frog's Legs leads into Twin Tubs, which
everybody knew anyway, a combination of inexperience, lack of confidence and
good old fashioned slackness limiting their output.

<p>At this point, more people began to arrive. Julian Haines was particularly
welcome as he owned an estate car with a towbar, thus giving us a realistic
means of getting the trailer and all the other shit back to Britain. He also
brought out the new radio system, which had been carefully adapted from its
1993 predecessor such that it didn't work any more.

<p>Steve and Kate appeared after hitching from the Alps, and Steve
immediately started his assault on the beer tally by drinking 17 bottles of
G&ouml;sser on his first day.

<p>Another new arrival was Bob Bloodworth, a random American living in
Germany, who had got in touch with Wookey prior to expo. His introduction to
European style SRT was a trip down to Gnome with AndyA and MikeTA, and
included a particularly nasty deviation. This trip popped out in Vestabule,
thus meaning that the squeeze did not have to be negotiated again. Bob had
more enthusiasm than the rest of the expo put together. In three days he
amassed 33 hours underground and then went home - he will be most welcome
again in future years.

<p>The rediscovery of an old CUCC hole, labelled B11, caused some excitement,
partly because it was jolly big with a six second drop followed by another
four seconds of rattling around, but mainly because it was within spitting
distance of top camp. Julian was volunteered to descend in dry grots, but
having got about half way down, his zoom made the rest of the descent on its
own, ensuring a later return.

<p>Then came the dinner, by which time we had found the unimpressive total of
250m of cave. The dinner itself will be remembered for a notable feat of
gluttony achieved by Kate, who became the first CUCC member to eat ten Mohr
im Hemds in succession and fail to regurgitate any of them for a full fifteen
minutes.

<p><b>More Caving</b>

<p>Apart from his exploits down B11, Julian's first real caving trip was the
day after the dinner, which found and surveyed 250m of stomping passageway
off Sultans of Swing, a pitch leading out of Algeria. This proved to be the
most significant find of the expo, and revived interest in caving. The two
main passageways were Mississippi, which resembled a dried up river bed, and
a muddy passage called Mississippi Mud Pie. On the next trip down here,
whilst Julian and Ali ran away and found even more huge cave, Anthony and
Kate had the pleasure of surveying a scrofulous 30m crawl (Mohr im Hemd)
which Kate had pushed with commendable enthusiasm on the previous trip. This
was only worth the effort because it led to a sizeable chamber
(Regurgitation) with a couple of possible leads, and sorely tested Anthony's
cheerful demeanour.

<p>The series of pitches and passages found by Julian and Ali, which in a fit
of inspiration they named after biscuits reflecting the state of the rock,
led into a stomping phreatic passage which emerged in the middle of a large
pitch with spits in it. Much speculation and even more bullshit then followed
about what we might have broken into, ranging from other parts of KH, to
another French cave, to Stellerweg. An attempt to survey this the following
day was aborted before it started after Kate couldn't find the survey kit we
had been using the previous day and thought it might have been left down the
cave. At least this gave Heather an introduction to Austrian caving, as she
and Ali went to retrieve this only to find it sitting in Kate's gear at the
entrance. When the survey was eventually completed, in one mega trip
involving two teams of three who surveyed 600m of cave, the pitch was found
to be an active shaft which runs parallel to Fat Not Fruity, so the spits are
presumably French. The pitch was named "Skeleton in the Cupboard," as during
the initial exploration Julian and Ali thought they had found the final
resting place of an unfortunate caver, which turned out to be an oddly shaped
rock. On the surveying trip, Steve, not usually the most enthusiastic of
cavers, was so keen to get underground that he didn't bother to put his
clothes in a plastic bag and just left them strewn about the entrance, so you
can probably guess what the weather did whilst he was underground (boom....
crash....pitter-patter....)

<p>Further trips down France linked in the survey with Fat Not Fruity, and
pushed and surveyed "Fudge Brownie," a side passage off Mississippi. This led
to a collection of loose rubble and earth levitating above a rift, named
"Rocky Horror". The rift was found to link into the bottom of a pitch at the
end of Mississippi, which was duly named "Black Suspender." MikeTS had an
entertaining time climbing up a bank of choss in "Rich Tea Chamber" with the
aid of a bolting hammer, which it was thought might lead to more passageway,
but in fact concealed a pitch which was deemed too dangerous to bolt.

<p>Meanwhile, AndyA, Bob and MikeTA finished off Driller Killer, surveyed and
derigged. (The newly fettled drill battery packed in on its first trip).
Despite all the easy stuff lying around in France, AndyA and Olly still
worked up enough energy to push Exhaustion Pitch in the far northwestern
corner of KH. They found a few hundred metres of cave which was draughty,
cold and remote and thus named "Siberia," which ended in a pitch with a
watery bottom.

<p>Despite all this industry, we did find time for a little relaxation,
zooming up and down the Halst&auml;ttersee in a pair of pedalos, and going
even faster down the toboggan run near Bad Ischl. The regular clientele
probably suspected there were some reckless nutters in their midst when we
showed up on a swelteringly hot day wearing long trousers and long sleeved
shirts. (Note for next year: Twin sleds go LOTS faster than individual ones).
This escapade took place on the same day that AndyA finally managed to pester
enough people into going to take photographs of Vestas and Duracells in the
depths of KH.

<p>So the second half of expo made up for the first, with over a kilometre of
cave being found and surveyed. We even managed to make base camp less
pleasant by not washing up for three weeks. Eventually, when the fetid aroma
behind the beer tent had not subsided despite us having stopped pissing
there, it became obvious that the festering pan collection was responsible,
and Kate very kindly did the honours and washed up, using enough disinfectant
to sterilise the whole of Austria in the process. The subsequent discussion,
as to whether or not they had been adequately rinsed, following a
suspiciously tangy omelette, produced an unreasonable amount of ranting on
both sides.

<p><b>Derigging</b>

<p>The day after the photo trip, derigging began. Pete and Ali had the joyous
task of derigging the far end, which led to the most succinct write up of
expo ("It was fucking hard, we were fucking shagged,") whilst Anthony, Julian
and Martin finished some surveying in France and then derigged out. Since
Julian and Anthony were going to do the lion's share of the derigging, they
packed Martin off early with a full tacklesack. Martin thought it seemed a
little heavier than normal, and this could have been because it was a quarter
full of hangers. On the next day, AndyA, MikeTS, Steve and Olly finished
derigging from Knossos, with Olly adding a little interest by dropping a
tackle sack off the top of Bungalow. Julian also went to retrieve his zoom
from B11, which is described in the old literature as a 50m shaft, choked at
the bottom. It was thought that maybe it hadn't been fully explored. Guess
what? <a href="/1623/198/198.html">B11</a> is a 50m shaft, which is well
and truly choked.

<p>Then followed the usual procession of overloaded cavers staggering down
the mountain, followed by a mammoth rope washing session in the river. This
offended one Belgian Gasthaus resident sufficiently to earn her a suitable
volley of abuse from Julian.

<p>At this point, Kate's bloke appeared, full of bullshit about how he'd been
appointed Grand High Wizard of the International Veterinary Students Special
Wanking Sub-Committee, or some such illustrious post. We bade them farewell
as they set off to hitch, initially to Budapest, with two huge packs and a
collection of veterinary text books on a trolley with a branch lashed to it
for added comedy.

<p>Then it was all over for another year, leaving KH now over 12km long (and
still not bloody well finished), a number of promising leads in France (which
still rains boulders on the unwary), and a big pile of empties to take back
to the supermarket. Expo had not been as successful as it might have been,
but we had still found another 1.8km of cave. Andy fixed his brakes, which
had given him an exciting time coming down the toll road, most of the expo
was packed into Julian's car and the trailer, and off we went. The two
drivers of the latter vehicle (Julian and Anthony) were quite comfortable,
but their passenger (Steve) probably realised he was going to be in for a
hard time when the wall of shit next to him on the back seat collapsed as we
negotiated the first bend. Never mind, it's only 16 hours to Oostende...

<p><b>Statistics Corner</b>

<ul>
<li>Number of Cavers : 18
<li>Total Caver Hours Underground : 665&frac12;
<li>Maximum Individual TU : Andy A (90 hrs)
<li>Most Keen Caver : Bob (8&frac14; hrs underground per day in Austria)
</ul>

<ul>
<li>Biers Drunk : 920
<li>Limos Drunk : 518
<li>Bier Monster : Pete (125)
<li>Limo King : Anthony (63) 
</ul>

<p><b>Rogues Gallery</b>

<ul>
<li>Ali "The Shark (Retired)" Morris (CUCC &amp; ULCC)
<li>Andy "Drill Victim" Atkinson
<li>Andy "Doris2" Davison
<li>Anthony "Cookin' the Books" Day
<li>Bob "Lean Mean Cavin' Machine" Bloodworth (Free Agent)
<li>Dave "Wondercaver" Collins (ULCC)
<li>Heather "The Chimney" McAdam (ULCC)
<li>Helen "The Navigator" Twelftree
<li>Julian "Marconi" Haines
<li>Kate "Queen of Puddings" Janossy
<li>Martin "Derigging Superhero" Sabry (ULCC)
<li>Mike "Comedy Clutch" Richardson
<li>Mike "In the Pink" Pigram
<li>Olly "The Narg" Betts
<li>Pete "Long-Haired Lout" Lord
<li>Ralph "Chundermonster" Harwood (YUCPC)
<li>Sean "Coriander King" Houlihane
<li>Steve "Father Christmas" Bellhouse
</ul>

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<!-- LINKS -->
<ul id="links">
<li><a href="http://cucc.survex.com/jnl/1996/index.htm">Table of Contents</a>
for Cambridge Underground 1996</li>
<li>1994 Expedition info:
<ul>
<li><a href="index.htm">Index</a> (more complete than this list)</li>
<li><a href="log.htm">Logbook</a></li>
<li>Index to <a href="161.htm">Kaninchenh&ouml;hle trips</a> in the log</li>
<li><a href="bcracc.htm">BCRA Caves &amp; Caving</a> Report</li>
<li><a href="ustour.htm">American Wrinklie on Tour</a>
(an independent view of the expo)</li>
<li>This year's <a href="sponsr.htm">sponsors</a></li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="../../pubs.htm#pubs1994">Index</a> to all publications</li>
<li><a href="../../sponsr.htm">Current year's</a> sponsors</li>
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