Camping on Halloween
Diary: 29/10/11: Subterranean Halloween
After the successful day trip to Box Mine the month before, I was quite keen on the idea of an overnight trip.
We thought Box Mine might be a little unsafe to get drunk in so we went to Brown's Folly Mine instead.
I was generally better prepared this time though. I'd bought myself a Maglite torch, a headlight, a lamp and some gloves, which were all rather handy. Did go to Dungeon the night before though, which probably wasn't the best idea but I felt okay-ish ready for the drive up towards Bath :o)
The entrance to Box Mine was a very small opening in the ground but getting into Brown's Folly meant crawling on our stomachs. The gap was too small to go through with our rucksacks so we had to push those through separately :oP
There seemed to be less abandoned mine equipment down Brown's Folly than in Bath but there was a lot more railtrack still laid down, which was nice. We ended up setting up camp in an area nicknamed 'Clapham Junction' because of the railtracks all coming together that point.
The best photo of the night was taken after we'd lit that place up with tealights. It's up on facebook: Clapham picture
Yeah, that is a Christmas Tree, which doesn't quite go with the Halloween theme but it was already there. Makes our Halloween trip feel a bit clichéd given that apparently someone celebrated Christmas down there :oP
Lots of trekking about then. I had a lot of fun scampering around and up into various places, squeezing through small gaps and climbing up into the narrow areas were the ceiling had collapsed leaving a mount on the ground and a steepled ceiling :o)
Nice little 'Devil's Chamber' area with lots of 80's metal/satanic graffiti in glow-in-the-dark paint. That was a fun place to take photos, all of which are on my facebook: facebook album
Felt like it got colder during the night, although I'm not sure if that's just because we got less active. I ended up sleeping in my balaclava just to keep warm (which is very effective it turns out, when I was awake I'd only need to wear it for 5-10 minutes before I'd warmed up enough to take it off again) :o)
Did more exploring in the morning and found the stable area were they would have kept the horse, which was completely covered in some old graffiti from when the mine was still active.
We ended up leaving the mine just after 2pm, a full 21 hours after originally entering. Was pretty good to see daylight again at that point :o)
Link: damncutekitty - Geeks do not make better boyfriends
After the successful day trip to Box Mine the month before, I was quite keen on the idea of an overnight trip.
We thought Box Mine might be a little unsafe to get drunk in so we went to Brown's Folly Mine instead.
I was generally better prepared this time though. I'd bought myself a Maglite torch, a headlight, a lamp and some gloves, which were all rather handy. Did go to Dungeon the night before though, which probably wasn't the best idea but I felt okay-ish ready for the drive up towards Bath :o)
The entrance to Box Mine was a very small opening in the ground but getting into Brown's Folly meant crawling on our stomachs. The gap was too small to go through with our rucksacks so we had to push those through separately :oP
There seemed to be less abandoned mine equipment down Brown's Folly than in Bath but there was a lot more railtrack still laid down, which was nice. We ended up setting up camp in an area nicknamed 'Clapham Junction' because of the railtracks all coming together that point.
The best photo of the night was taken after we'd lit that place up with tealights. It's up on facebook: Clapham picture
Yeah, that is a Christmas Tree, which doesn't quite go with the Halloween theme but it was already there. Makes our Halloween trip feel a bit clichéd given that apparently someone celebrated Christmas down there :oP
Lots of trekking about then. I had a lot of fun scampering around and up into various places, squeezing through small gaps and climbing up into the narrow areas were the ceiling had collapsed leaving a mount on the ground and a steepled ceiling :o)
Nice little 'Devil's Chamber' area with lots of 80's metal/satanic graffiti in glow-in-the-dark paint. That was a fun place to take photos, all of which are on my facebook: facebook album
Felt like it got colder during the night, although I'm not sure if that's just because we got less active. I ended up sleeping in my balaclava just to keep warm (which is very effective it turns out, when I was awake I'd only need to wear it for 5-10 minutes before I'd warmed up enough to take it off again) :o)
Did more exploring in the morning and found the stable area were they would have kept the horse, which was completely covered in some old graffiti from when the mine was still active.
We ended up leaving the mine just after 2pm, a full 21 hours after originally entering. Was pretty good to see daylight again at that point :o)
Link: damncutekitty - Geeks do not make better boyfriends