Arriving at the YHA buildings we kitted up and made the long trek
up the fell side following the course of the old mining remains until we
reached the site of the Old Mill. From the mill we went cross country and
descended the Glencoynedale valley to finally reach the Glencoyne Level. Thank
god for the cloudy cold weather, as the trek would have been a bit on the hot
side otherwise, outside the entrance we had a break and lunch.
Entering
the level we hit water straight away and it was bloody cold! After a short
period a crossroads was reached and we took the left crosscut, which brought us
to the first pitch, a short 10m ladder drop. The level at the bottom of the
pitch was the High Horse Level. Here we made our way along towards the deep
connecting shaft to the Low Horse Level. At the top of the shaft there was a
valve and a large diameter pipe which headed down the shaft. The High Horse
Level at one point had been flooded with the aid of a series of dams and the
valve was used to direct water to the hydraulic engine at Willie Shaft. The way
down this shaft was on ladders with a safety line, whilst climbing down, it
seemed to go on forever - a kind of mine explorers purgatory. By the time the
bottom was reached, your arms knew about it, especially since the last section
was on chain ladders. The distance climbed down was 70m.
Once on the Low
Horse Level our route took us to the escape shaft that was driven in the early
1950's, which also provided access to the massive Alma Stope. We dropped a
total of 80m before landing in a major wagon way in the Alma Stope. Here many
artifacts could be seen, including kibbles, spades, tools, a very nice metal
ore truck and many more items. The end of the wagon way also provided a good
view out into the Alma Stope, though non of our lights could penetrate the
darkness before us - we could tell it was big. From the Alma Stope our last
part of decent started and soon we were standing next to the infamous very
large boulder, that was chocked across the stope walls. Just in case it decided
to ever move, a section of girder has been installed above it and the boulder
is strapped and wired up to it as a safety precaution. I cannot really imagine
the very idea of getting a girder to that point in the mine and then fixing it
to the walls! For the final pitch we had to install a pull through rope and
finally we arrived on the Lucy Tongue Level, the last 70m. A total of around
230m of ladders and abseiling.
Our exit was on the Lucy Tongue Level,
however we had around 1.6km to go before reaching the hobbit hole portal. Along
the way we looked at various features including the chamber for Smiths Shaft
and associated artifacts, and then it was pretty much out along the crosscut to
the portal. We passed through and were amazed at the sections of the level
which had been dug through by CATMHS and MOLES - the amount of work put in,
along with the materials was phenomenal. |
