After the showcave, we will go cave diving...

The French at war!

The campsite is beginning to wind down after the holiday season, but that didn't stop them having their traditional party games in the pool, which are always a great spectator sport!

The idea was to balance on a giant inflatable ring and get pulled towards your opponent, who will try to bash you off your perch with a long pink sausage!

Rich was quite keen to revisit this short, but beautiful cave and we fancied doing our own film this time, with the objective to have shots of the diver swimming towards the camera and a good shot of the entrance rift.

So, I sent an email to Mehdi, the local diver who has access to the source and he duly arranged a dive for us.

Mehdi is a really nice guy and amused us with tales of his adventures the night before his wedding, which involved diving the Esperelle and then rock climbing in the Dourbie gorge, finishing up at about 2am!



Pretties in Dargilan show cave

We weren’t meeting him until 4pm though, so we looked for something else to do during the day and came across Dargilan show caves. Mum had been rattling on about this for years, so I figured it would be worth a visit, especially as it was only half an hour from the Esperelle.

Dargilan didn’t disappoint and we had ample opportunity to take photos.
 

After a spot of lunch overlooking the very impressive valley, we set off to the Esperelle to meet Mehdi.

The Esperelle is stunning and although only just over 300m long, drops off to the terminus at -60m. We took trimix and set off, leap frogging to get some lovely video shots and then floated down the beautiful, sculptured shaft at the end of the cave.

We returned with a little decompression and Mehdi kept his customary bottle of white wine in the sump, cooling for us.

 

 

A welcome cold beer after diving!



A Grotty Sergent

Rich wanted a day off. So I took him caving!

Somehow over the last decade I have managed to avoid this very pleasant little cave. I must have misread the instructions because 300m walking later we had not found a 'large porch' - or anything resembling a cave.
This is not unusual. I have been up many garden paths, gum trees and on several spectacular wild goose chases in this region. It is hot, scrubby bush bashing and the best you can hope for is some sort of cairn, bit of paint (which could mean anything really - like, a really long GR route.....) or a couple of contradictory arrows painted on trees.

There was some pleasant scrambling on grippy limestone river bed with dried up plunge pools and lots of lizards, before we finally got to a 'combe' where we couldn't go any further - the cave had to be here.

It was - a vertical but not difficult scramble up the cliff face!

Once in the cool entrance, we wandered off down pretty but not spectacular dry fossil cave with a sandy floor. It probably does resurge in exceptional weather, but it hadn't in a very long time.
I took the opportunity to take some photos with my new camera and see how I got on. I'm reasonably happy with them, especially given there were only two of us.
I get the feeling this is the Herault's version of 'Goatchurch' - but much nicer and would be a good starter cave for any led groups I bring here in the future. It has nice little climbs, abseils to protect the vertical bits and pretties. Plus a great view from the entrance.
Well worth the afternoon out.



Rich Walker admires the fossil formations

 

Last leg...



Panorama of the Viz valley



Millau Bridge

The last part of the journey to the Languedoc is quite hilly and scenic. We are treated to the magnificent Millau bridge. This wasn’t built when I first came here and it knocks a good 2 hours off the journey. Rich enjoyed coffee and cake at the Aire just before the crossing. Despite being one of the tallest bridges in Europe and extremely impressive, it is still cheaper to cross than the severn!

Our ‘canvas bungalow’ is very cosy, with loads of storage space and a nice patio, with some decking out the back for privacy and parties!

We moved in straight away and I don’t miss the faff of putting up a large tent one bit. Plenty of time for a dip in the pool, followed by cold beer in the bar (which sadly shuts at the end of the season on Friday) and Rich’s excellent spag bol.

Rich in our 'Bungalowe Toile'

We've moved in!

Campsite bar and pool





 




Our home for the next 3 weeks

"I don't want a wash - I'm on holiday!"



 Herault 2012

Setting sail from Dover

Well, we finally made it to Dover. Our Gouffre Berger plans have gone to the dogs, having received a message that the organisers are de-rigging early due to weather and 'people'. I suspect not enough to de-rig at the end of the week, and now they are two less as we aren't going to bother going - given that all the rope will be out of the cave by the time we get there. I can't say I'm that disappointed, but it would have been nice to at least have the opportunity. We couldn't get down any earlier and doing the trip would have been something of an inconvenience given the fairly busy schedule we have in the Herault - so really, it has been forgotten about.
We've boycotted P&O after they gave a fellow cave diver a hard time and went with DFDS (or Norfolkline) and they took one look at our overpacked van and ran away......
We made good time through Paris and have stopped at an F1 in Orleans, where I tried to coax Rich into the shower, only to be met with a protest that he was on holiday and didn't need a wash!!



A better class of boat.

Arriving in Calais.



The 'Pizza Party' and heading home...

Nathan prepares the pizza ovens

Following a fun day at the Source du Sorgues, we headed back south again to follow Nathan’s directions to the ‘Pizza Partie’. The CLPA had organised a farewell party – which was really just an excuse to hang out and show off their pizza-making and wine-drinking skills!
We weaved along tracks up on the plateau getting further and further from civilization as it began to get dark. Oz and Joe followed in their van, wondering where this mad woman was leading them now.
I wasn’t in the least bit bothered as the pizza party was being held in the same vicinity as the Calaven de la Seoubio.

Some CDG friends and I pushed this cave in 2007 and passed 7 sumps (the 8th had disappeared!!) and several kilometres of muddy caving with diving kit, to drop a climb at the limit of exploration and find tens of meters of new dry cave until a final, impassable (at the time) lake was found.

It was my first taste of virgin cave and it took four days of work and an 11 hour trip plus a set-up day, to get there.



Seoubio Team at dive base, Easter 2007

On that trip, we radio-located a chamber in the area of sump 7, as we thought it was quite close to the surface. According to the radio-location, the cave was only 30m below the plateau.


Radiolocating the Seoubio sump 7 in 2007








The CLPA that evening began digging with their bare hands, looking down every crack in the limestone pavement to find a draught. They have subsequently embarked on several digging missions, including the ‘Aven de Verriére’ and the current project, the ‘Aven du Team’. Each surface dig has reached a depth of around 20m but has yet to yield anything promising. Jean Tarrit pointed out that the Seoubio may well be destined to belong to divers only.

The CLPA get digging

The French pull tens of 'jerrycans' of spoil
out of the dig every weekend.











The Hortus Plateau is a barren limestone landscape, which must
hold the key to some serious cave somewhere...

We finally wiggled our way across the plateau and met another CLPA member, having trouble finding the correct electric fence. We found it and negotiated it and drove down some pretty Berlingo-hostile track until we found the group by lots of voices in the scrub!
Oz and Joe by this point must have really thought I was totally nuts – Oz had already declared he was never going to another pizza party again! Ahhhh, but they hadn’t been to one like this before….
The CLPA had been struggling to find a productive use for the digging spoil they had been producing from the Aven du Team. Some genius thought it would be a good idea to use the limestone pieces from the dig to build pizza ovens!

We stumbled in the near darkness through the scrubby bushes and over the cracked limestone pavement which clinked as you stepped on loose slabs and walked into a clearing where the pizza ovens were roaring with flames.

The wine was flowing, the pizza dough was being rolled, cans of allsorts of toppings were appearing and Jean was in full flow about caves which could connect with the Perdreau, other projects he had in mind for us and the other club members seemed to be queuing up to question us about the project.

It was a simply fantastic evening. The laptops came out and we showed the club the footage Joe had shot in the Gourney-Rou and the Gourney-Ras. They were suitably wowed and then the pizza started circulating – delivered by the same guy who had run down the hill with my cylinders!! I’m seriously considering joining this club!! They even made Oz his very own vegetarian pizza – but not without a certain amount of p!ss taking!!
It was a real shame to have to leave this great area and such great people. Next time I think we may need to take hammocks and stay the night on the moonlit plateau.

We packed up the tents with some sweaty effort the next day and had a dip in the pool before heading steadily back up the road to the UK. One final treat was in store – a restaurant which we came across purely by chance! It is called L'Ateliére du Gout and we had some of the best French food ever encountered!
The same sadly couldn’t be said of Seafrance…….but we did get a great sunset in Calais and a long, tiring drive home.

16th September - Source du Sorgues



Sorgues resurgence

Mehdi Dighouth


The Sorgues is in Aveyron and is a great little cave to finish the trip with.

We invited Mehdi Dighouth to come over for the day and Rich and I set off to the cave to have a picnic before diving.

Oz and Joe set off to the Durzon - because their instructions had the GPS co-ordinates mixed up!!!!!

The Sorgues is a beautiful river emerging from the cirque rockface and feeds the fish-farm just downstream. It used to be the case that divers were asked to hose off their drysuits before entering the water but now the fish-farm seem not to care and divers are welcome here.
We settled down to lunch by the weir and Mehdi produced some home-made Fois Gras and some fruit jelly thing which was amazing.

We were still waiting for the others to show up and without a mobile signal here, wondered just how long we should wait. Rich still needed fills from the compressor so couldn't dive with me until Oz and the compressor arrived. It was decided that I should go for a dive with Mehdi and Rich could dive with the others when (if) they showed up.

Chris faffing in the resurgence pool before her dive

Mehdi and I set off through the maze of boulders and concrete tunnels which fill the entrance. I first dived here in 2007 but didn't remember much about the cave as I was pre-occupied with a top-heavy independent twinset, having moved from sidemount to backmount gear myself, without any advice or training. I was uncomfortable throughout and didn't enjoy the dive.
It was great this time to know that I could just get on with it and relax.
We dived to what I consider the end of the cave. The main, spacious passage just ends and the way on is a small, narrow rift which goes up to about 3m depth from 31m and nobody has been any further. It is reported to be tight, nasty and a dead-end boulder choke - so we stay in the big stuff!
With loads of gas to spare, we turn round and I get the opportunity to waft my HID around and have a real good look at this cave. The geology is beautiful and there are ribbons of calcite protruding like a dragons back all along the edges and the floor. The water is typically clear, with a blue tinge and no decompression is required for such a short dive.


Mehdi and Christine return from their dive

We surface to see that the others have arrived and Rich is getting his cylinders filled. Elaine and Duncan set off for a short dive and Elaine returns with plenty of gas, so I offer to take her in again behind the filming crew. Rich, Oz and Joe have a lengthy dive briefing for the camera work and Mehdi sneaks in for another dive behind them. Elaine and I stealthily follow them all and we are treated to a fantastic view of four divers, all with bright filming lights and HIDs, spread out down the passage. Elaine is thrilled with her dive and we call it a day.

Chris, Elaine, Osama, Mehdi, Joe, Duncan and Rich.

Mehdi returns and gives me an impromptu lesson on his Megdalon rebreather. I always said I would never go over to RB because there is so much I can do on open circuit to last me a lifetime - and I haven't got anywhere near my limit of open circuit yet. But maybe in ten years time I may think differently.

We end the day with much giggling and silliness as Joe asks Mehdi for an interview about the Esperelle. Both Joe and Mehdi are extremely professional - you get the feeling they have both done this sort of thing before....I am in the background asking Mehdi questions in French and the video looks amazing.
Then it's Rich's turn to be in front of the camera and Joe's techniques for shedding a little golden light on the subject has us in stitches.
All too soon it is time to go. Mehdi has to go and give a talk at the speleo congress and we have to shoot off as we've been invited onto the Hortus Plateau - aka middle of absolutely nowhere - by the CLPA for a pizza party!

15th September - Gourney-Rou

Gourneyrou Survey from www.plongeesout.com

Having recovered from our day off and Oz and Joe having had a great day out in the Mas Raynal, we decided to go to the Gourney-Rou.Rich and I had planned on a 'big' dive in here to the 70m slope which is on the approach to the infamous 90m, gravel-filled U-bend. We weren't sure we would get this far as we had sacrificed one bottom stage of 15/55 for use in the Gourney-Ras and another each for use in the Perdreau. But we had intact trimix in our back-gas and a travel Ali 80 of 32% for the 300m long shallow section.
Oz and Joe only had enough gas to film the 300m level so Rich and I dived first.


Chris and Rich start lowering gear to the sump.

I hadn't been here before and after a brief excursion down the wrong path, Oz spotted the correct one and we were shortly joined by the French CLPA members, who had been trying to catch up with us over the last few days. Jean Tarrit and friends had showed up for a day out, to meet up with us in person and to thrust an armful of maps and paperwork into my grasp for a proposed project next year. Another one!!

Jean is a fantastic guy and I readily compare him to some of the older, eccentric members of the Wessex. He speaks good, fluent English and has a great sense of humour and has us in stitches. He is wonderful for morale. Not least because he invites his mates along, who pick up our cylinders and run off down the hill with them!

Jean Tarrit



Jean-Claude makes light work of twinsets

The rope is needed for the cave entrance. Water levels are extremely low and there is a dodgy metal ladder in place, but getting twinsets and stages into the water requires ropes and elbow grease.
Everyone got their gear into the water with the help of the French guys - and the amount of banter they were dishing out was great fun too!
Rich and I kitted up and set off into the crystal clear water.


Chris ready for the off

We dived along an inclined rift until about 12m depth where the cave became spacious and more interesting. It undulated, between 20m and 30m and we followed allsorts of line, from SRT rope to dental floss. The line clearly breaks in winter floods and allsorts of attempts had been made at finding various types of line.

Chris and Rich start clipping on stages and deco bottles

We came across one line break and Rich put a gap line in - not realising that by barely touching the rock, it would stir up a whole cloud of powder which just sat lingering in mid-passage.
We dived on and dropped our 32% travel gas not far from the drop down to the deep section. We had switched onto trimix and started down the gradually descending passageway and it wasn't long before we met depth...50m, 60m, 70m....That'll do......
We turned on the steeply dipping gravel slope, just short of the 'elbow' which causes allsorts of decompression games for anyone wanting to go beyond it.

We dived home and began our deco at -21m. At which point, during the gas switch, my primary light went out.

Now, anybody who knows me will know what I am like with lights. I can kill anything. I amazed Rich in Ginnie Springs by all my lights going out on one dive - back-ups and all - which was even more inconvenient as it was a night dive!!!

Oz and Joe set off. Photo: Jean Tarrit (CLPA)

So, a bit annoyed, I deployed my back-up which is a decent extreme-tek (this torch was the best thing I ever bought - thanks to Nadir Lasson and Clive Westlake for suggesting it) and continued my gas switch. We hovered decompressing while Rich tried to sort the light out. The switch had been somehow knocked off and it soon came back on. I re-stowed my back-up and we carried on working our way up through the decompression stops. Again, we did more than we needed, but took into account the whole picture of the carry, heat etc and aired on the safe side.

Even so, we barely did half an hour in total.

At 12m I saw Rich doing what looked like a flow check.

Now what?!

He had bubbles coming from his right post. Only little ones, so we carried on and switched onto oxygen at 6m in the awkward inclined rift while Oz and Joe passed us heading in for their dive.

Oz in the 30m section



Oz setting off down the inclined rift at the start of the Gourney-Rou

Great screen grab from Joe's film of the Gourney-Rou

















Rich and I sat around for a bit doing not-a-lot, which is customary after deep dives which involve hills and hot weather. Jean and his CLPA mates started hauling gear up for us and our stages were out of the water and up on dry land before we were!!

Chris climbing the ladder after her deepest
cave dive so far in the Gourney-Rou.

Joe and Oz came back with some amazing film footage of the sump and after sitting around for a bit, we all made the steady plod up the hill with twinsets and stages. It was a bit cooler than our day at the Gourney-Ras and it was noticeably better for it. We managed to pack up, get some fills done and have a bite to eat before I managed to persuade Rich to come skinny dipping in the Viz river! It looked stunning and I thought it would be the same temperature as the Herault. It wasn't!! The beer was cooling on the side and after dipping my big toe in, we decided that a swim once round the 'island', dodging enormous trout, was in order - and then out!

After a beer, we headed back into town to find Joe and Oz who had set off in search of the nearest pub. A grand day out and well worth the effort.




Gourney-Rou by Joe Hesketh.