Longwood Valley Walk
Today I was supposed to be joining Tim, Matt and a few others on a caving trip to Eastwater Cavern. However after getting my rather painful and swollen hand looked at and then put in a splint that option was not open to me! This made me rather grumpy and sulky!! I decided that I would get a lift up to the Mendips with them and go for a walk instead. Sarah had no plans for the day so said she would come with me. As we got nearer to the Mendips we saw that they had had some snow, not enough to make the roads a problem but enough to make the fields etc white and pretty. We arrived at the caving club Tim, Matt and the others went off to get kitted up and got Sarah and I ready to go for our walk. I have been keen to have a walk down Longwood valley as we only ever get as far as the cave entrance near the top of it! We parked in the usual place and set off over the hill.
The snow was really crisp in amongst the very squidgy muddy bits!
We found the stile and made our way down into the valley and the stream.
We passed the entrance to Longwood Swallet, Sarah remembered that Matt wasn't all that keen on this cave!!
We tried to find the most sensible route down the valley, the stream was larger than normal because of the amount of rain we have been having and because the natural sink for the cave is blocked so all the water is flowing down the valley!
A short way further down past Longwood Swallet entrance We took a path off to the right along a stone wall. About 25m along we found the entrance to Rhino Rift up on the left hand side.
Back to the normal path we carried on our way down the valley. We crossed the stream to follow the path on the other side.
Further down we found another cave entrance with a winch out side of it. We later found this to be Longwood Valley Sink.
We followed the path up the side of the valley to get onto the top in the hope there was less mud!!
We were wrong!! We got rather filthy - especially Sarah!!
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