{"id":1481,"date":"2008-11-09T10:08:04","date_gmt":"2008-11-09T10:08:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scottysblog.com\/scottys-40th-birthday-trip-to-bath-i-caving\/"},"modified":"2008-11-09T10:08:04","modified_gmt":"2008-11-09T10:08:04","slug":"scottys-40th-birthday-trip-to-bath-i-caving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottysblog.com\/home\/scottys-40th-birthday-trip-to-bath-i-caving\/","title":{"rendered":"Scotty’s 40th Birthday Trip to Bath: i) Caving"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\"Caving<\/a>   \"Caving<\/a> \"Caving<\/a> My actual 40th birthday involved two main things – the big party on the 1st Nov and a trip down to Bath for a lovely mix of adventure caving and (semi-) civilised cocktails and dinner.<\/p>\n

Caving hit the spot bang on – so ok, we had to slightly lie when filling out the health disclaimer forms beforehand (Hawksey's dodgy back and knees, my slight inability to walk and climb at the moment), but we managed to spend 3 hours in some very dark cave in the Mendips with a guide, orange jumpsuits, headlights, Ribena & a Cadbury Boost Bar and no mishaps.<\/p>\n

Lots of sliding, crawling, slithering through unfeasibly small openings – it's always a bit worrying when the guide is smaller than I am, especially for Twiggy Hawkes, but we both got down several hundred feet, admired the underground geology (I am such a philistine, it looked like a lot of wet red mud rock to me) and avoided the spiders that were apprently down there (thank god caving headlamps don't show you everything that's in radius).<\/p>\n

The exit was amusing – a 10 metre semi vertical slope upwards with a rope to climb up, using all that upper body strength I have never possessed and all that leg muscle oomph that I had run out of on the steep walk up to the cave entrance, let alone in it. So there we were, the guide at the top having bounded up like a mountain goat on acid, H and I at the bottom, H with his hand on my not small arse, trying to bum-shove me upwards without the guide noticing quite how crap I was. And we all emerged from a low narrow slit the size of a small coffee table into the late October sunshine..<\/p>\n

So yes, while everyone kept saying it wasn't a good idea – IT WAS! Well, I wanted to be able to look back on a big day like my 40th and feel I'd achieved something and didn;t want a shitty thing like ill-health to get in the way. So while caving might not be single handedly crossing the channel or climbing Kilimanjaro, I was chuffed and have some sexy photos of us in jumpsuits and various great bruises on my butt to remember it by.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  My actual 40th birthday involved two main things – the big party on the 1st Nov and a trip down to Bath for a lovely mix of adventure caving and (semi-) civilised cocktails and dinner. 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