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<title>1995: C.U.C.C. preliminary report</title>
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<h1>Expo 1995 - summary for CUCC use.</h1>
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<h3>Wookey</h3>
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<p>CUCC's 1995 expedition proved to be much more exciting than could be
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reasonably expected.
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<p>Those of you who have been following the saga of Kaninchenhöhle (or
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even taking part in it), will have noted a certain grim determination
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creeping into things, replacing the dynamic enthusiasm of the first few
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years. Despite the fact that the people change, the monotony of the same
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miserable hole in the ground for 8 years was beginning to get to expo.
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However, the events of 1995 have put an exciting new spin on things,
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prompting a return of that sense of excitment and anticipation.
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<p>Things got off to a slow start after initial difficulties with the
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(France) entrance being under 10ft of snow. A shovel was bought and a few
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exploratory holes dug, but to no avail. They had to wait until it melted
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enough to show where to go. Equally the top camp water hole proved hard to
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find.
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<p>The other thing that caused difficulty was the trailer that had been
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borrowed (as someone has nicked expo's trailer). This proved to be a bit
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rusty and generally not caver-proof, with 3 blowouts on the way there, the
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last resulting in axle collapse on the Pötschen pass. This meant the
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trip took 38 hours, and made the trailer towers (Nick Proctor & Anthony
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Day - Ex-pres, for those who don't know) very miserable!
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<p>Being unable to get into France, people started down 'Main Entrance', as
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it has become known. They wandered off to the host of question marks in the
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new section beyond Vestabule, and below Gnome II, accessed by the miserably
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muddy & catchy 'Stomping' passage. Here various holes were pushed, mostly
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in rather grotty rift. Classic austrian cave with hading rift & tight
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pitchheads. Four new bits of cave 'Limo's revenge', 'Splattery', 'Oral
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series', and 'Doubting Thomas' (after Mike TA pronounced that it 'definitely
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wouldn't go'). Doubting in fact went down about 110m to the same level as
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Knossos, before getting too miserable. All these bits & bobs came to
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about 400m.
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<p>Once the snow melted enough to sqeeze past, people went prodding around in
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France and found some stuff; another route into Twintubs below Algeria ('Daz
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Automatic'), a big chamber at end of Mohr im Hemd 'Regurgitation', a choked
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pitch at end of Mississipi 'Black Suspender', but nothing went very big, and
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a number of things even stopped (eg. bottom of totally huge Sultans of Swing
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pitch in Algeria!). The radios also failed to work after Julian Haines had
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fettled them quite a lot so he was dead pissed off. In revenge he built a new
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drill battery out of an aerial pole which seems to be both practical,
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effective & robust. It may even prove to be reliable!
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<p>Mike TA welded the trailer back together (typical CUCC response - bring a
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welder & angle grinder to Austria, rather than pay an Austrian garage).
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In fact the trailer only made it back as far as the Czech Republic before
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giving up the ghost, and being given to National Breakdown to bring back - we
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may see it sometime this year...
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<p>There were relatively few people in Austria this year. Students: Steve
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Bellhouse (new CUCC pres), Kate Janossy, Nick, Anthony, Duncan, Paul.
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Lags (in order of seniority): JulianH & his mate Hugh, Andy Atkinson,
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Wookey, Mike TA, Waddington. Students from London: Scout (Dave Collins), and
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Dave Johnson. Finally Penny turned up for a festering trip (no caving gear),
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and a pleasant re-orientation from clients & power-dressing, to expo
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squalor. However, everyone there did their bit (despite severe inexperience
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in a couple of cases), and 750 hours of caving got done.
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<p>Me & Andy Atkinson arrived at the end of week 3 and went down RH route
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to check out a QM near bungalow, and maybe go on to Siberia, but we got
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sidetracked and climbed up between Garden Party & squeeze - found some
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more cave higher in the rift. Did some jolly joke rigging and interesting
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climbs. Then went on to Bungalow and found that passage here went on over
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pitch, then down another pitch (18m), then to the head of an 80m odd rift.
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Fucknose where this goes - it's above the Flapjack area, but not really close
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enough to be the same pitch..
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<p>Meanwhile Nick was being hard and decided to check out Gob rift
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continuation (below the end of Yapate). He had rigged the RH route, and took
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novice after novice down to Gob, wearing them all out one by one. Things
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failed to go well (mike TA jacked at the crap bit - citing 'old man's
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privilege', and Duncan was keen but simply too fat to get through). Thus he
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finally got to rig it on his last trip, getting down 40m? in big, but rather
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wet pitch. Oh well - maybe next time.
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<p>Then me, AndyA & JulianH went on the trip to end all trips. First we
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checked out 'The Forbidden Land' which is the most appalling bit of cave
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ever in the whole world. Tiny (wet, muddy) thrutch (at end of
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Missisippi/Rocky Horror - ie. southernmost point of cave) comes out in
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bottom of boulder choke. All muddy and shitty and desperately loose. We all
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traversed this terribly carefully (about a 15m climb in total) and got into
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big space. It turned out to be a huge hading rift running approx NNE/SSW
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which is just full of mega-rocks. (one wall solid, one collapsed). We went
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about 60m in either direction, but whilst doing this there was a horrible
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rumble from the hole we climbed in through and we were sure that the end was
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nigh and we were entombed here for the foreseeable future. In fact only a
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couple of rocks had rolled down it and we lived, but its probably the
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scaredest I have been, and definitely the scaredest JulianH has ever been.
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We are <u><b>NOT</b></u> going back, even though it is big stuff that goes
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south off the end - towards Stellerweg - there has to be another way in
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somewhere...
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<p>So we started looking for said way in, going back up along bottom of Rocky
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Horror, poking into every available cranny. Soon found a significant pitch
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that no-one had been down, and a passage over the top - trivial traverse.
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This was small and soon shrank to a nasty squeeze which I pushed ('the
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Brownie's Cunt', after the Nun's Cunt, but off Fudge Brownie..). JulianH had
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a miserable time getting back out until we moved some of the rocks out of the
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bottom, 'cos he is a fat bastard. This came into bigger (3m wide) passage. We
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ran down this in various directions. Again I got lucky, and after finding a
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choke climbed 5m up a hole, which led into totally huge space (Staud'n'wirt
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palace). Wandering along from this was beautiful white-floored passage, and
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lots of batshit (!? - a first for KH). This was 7-10m wide and windy!
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following the breeze I came into an even bigger passage (hard to see far side
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- 'Triassic Park'). At this point I felt I had to go back and get the others,
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and we proceeded to walk 250m down this huge stuff before getting cave
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overload & going home happy bunnies!
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<p>Next trip Steve & Duncan & Kate surveyed another 350m on the end -
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still no sign of an obstacle!, and it was awfully close to the edge of the
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mountain (far side of Hinter). Then me and Andy came back up the hill,
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surveyed the bit we found down RH route near bungalow (semi-detached) and
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derigged all RH route (6 tacklesacks + the coax that has been there since
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1989).
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<p>Next day we decided it was time to find a new entrance so we went in and
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followed the batshit & breeze (the other way - downwind). We found three
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dead bats and some dead moths and a skull of something else (bird?) so the
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surface must be close, but wind went into a big choke and tiny impassable
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passage, until andy disappeared down 'obviously choked' bit and found loads
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of extra-scrotty passage, almost full of rocks except for top foot or so.
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After loads of this (in a significant gale) we got to a place where distant
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huge waterfall could be heard.
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<p>After a bit of prodding we realised that in fact the noise was the howling
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of the wind through a tiny bit of passage at roof level. I would have given
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up here (yep, it was that bad...) but Andy was determined that the surface
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was moments away and forced himself into this wind-tunnel (stopping the wind
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very effectively). This was only 'jolly' small, but had a bulge at the end
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which turned it into a total bastard (thus 'Battle of the Bulge'). I took my
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belay belt off (our SRT gear was left at the bottom of the rope in Algeria
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:-), it was so crap. Beyond the passage size increased and we found a chamber
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with loads of moths, mostly shagging. A few metres beyond this we had the
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enormous pleasure of running out into the open air on the side of the Hinter.
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Huge grins, and major excitement!!!
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<p>We had left the survey book at the choke, so we had to remember some
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bearings on mountains (to find it again) and then went back and spent some
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time discovering two different other ways back (one each) which avoided the
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crap stuff after Battle of the Bulge. We also noted, whilst surveying, that
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there were two places, one either side of BOTB where there were very
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similar-looking chokes of small rocks in big passage, which could conceivably
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be the same spot - thus a potential BOTB bypass - necessary for this to be a
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useful route in for non-skinny cavers.
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<p>We decided to leave our SRT gear and try walking back to France up the
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outside. This proved to be pretty fucking exciting. There is a 30m cliff
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above the new entrance - 161d, known as Scarface as there has been a big
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rockfall recently from the cliff above, which has removed all the bunde in
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the area, making it easy to find. This cliff either requires an exciting
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climb (Andy's route) or some appalling vertical bunde bashing (my route).
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The next day we tried some different down-routes, but these were even worse,
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as the bunde makes it impossible to pick your route sensibly from above.
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Finally, on the way home, I tried walking down to the Stogerweg & around
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the Vord., but that was pretty grim too, as I did miles of bunde bashing
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with a huge sack and then had an hour's walk back to the restaurant. However
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I reckon that a sensible route does exist from this direction - but it could
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take some time to find.
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<p>So in summary we have removed all that nasty SRT from the cave (it is
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currently a welsh caving trip!) but have made the walk-in rather more
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exciting.
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<p>After the success of the 'today we will find a new entrance' trip, we set
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out on a 'today we will survey a kilometer' trip, but this proved less
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sucessful, as Triassic Park stopped after another 250m (800m total). In fact
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you can see it continuing about 15m up in the roof, so we have another
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Staircase 36 to do 1st trip next year. In the opposite direction at the
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T-junction near the end (Trifucation) there is a big 25m+ pitch, a bigger
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(70m+) pitch, and a 15m drop to a rocky slope which is about 99% certain to
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be the back corner of Knossus!! - looks like nobody ever had a good enough
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light to notice this - we could have been here 6 years ago.
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<p>All very interesting stuff, and there are 72 new QMs on the 1995 list! So
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in the last 9 days of expo another 1500m was surveyed, bringing he year's
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total to 2km, and the cave to just over 14km.
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<p>I confidently predict that a good selection of old lags is likely to make
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an appearance in the light of the above: 'No SRT you say?', 'Miles of
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horizontal passage?'. All we have to do is work out where to put the campsite
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for 1996.
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<hr />
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<!-- LINKS -->
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<ul id="links">
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<li>1995 Expedition info:
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<ul>
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<li><a href="index.htm">Index</a> (more detail than in this list)</li>
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<li><a href="log.htm">Logbook</a></li>
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<li><a href="report.htm">Cambridge Underground report</a></li>
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<li><a href="bcracc.htm">BCRA Caves and Caving</a> Report</li>
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<li>This year's <a href="sponsr.htm">Sponsors</a></li>
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<li><a href="exponl.htm">From Expo Novice to Expo Leader</a>:
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The tale of my Decline</li>
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</ul></li>
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<li><a href="../../pubs.htm#pubs1995">Published accounts</a></li>
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<li><a href="../../index.htm">Back to Expedition intro page</a></li>
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<li><a href="../../../index.htm">CUCC Home page</a></li>
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</ul>
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