Westminster Speleological Group
What to expect on a caving weekend
A typical caving weekend will run from a Friday to Sunday where you will travel from London/wherever you live on Friday to your caving destination. This will typically be South Wales, where our caving hut is, but could also be one of: Mendip, Derbyshire or Yorkshire.
Most people will arrive on Friday in the evening and relax / decide what caves to do the next day. Dinner is usually sorted by yourself this evening – either eat beforehand or bring something for the oven. On Saturday morning it is up to you what you want for breakfast. Something substantial is recommended as you’ve got some big caving ahead of you. Again, breakfast is sorted by yourselves. Cereal, porridge or a fry up if you are feeling fancy. Usually after breakfast we’ll decide who is going on what trip and get all the beginners kitted up. We’ll then try to get out of the door ASAP (ideally before 10am)!
You should bring with you to the cave:
- Your caving kit
- Cave snacks
- Clothes to change into after the cave (if you don’t want to change back into what you are wearing)
- A towel (dependent on if we are showering at another club’s hut)
For beginners expect your caving trip to run for up to 5 hours so ensure you are fit enough to cope with hard walking, scrambling and crawling. I’ll keep the details here brief – talk to you leader if you have any concerns about the trip you’ll be going on.
Once your out of the cave you’ll usually walk back to your car, change and then drive back to the cottage. Sometimes we’ll park near another caving hut and walk to a cave in which case we can use their showers (usually they will charge a day fee of a pound or two, so bring some change).
Once you are back at the hut generally you spend the evening how you see fit. There is dinner to cook or a takeaway to buy then just drinks and chilling till everyone goes to bed. If kit is borrowed, you’ll have to clean it outside and then hang it in the drying room. Sunday trips do happen if people are keen but a lot of people also opt to leave in the late morning after cleaning up the hut to drive back to where they travelled from.
Typical weekend costs are:
- £20 hut fees for two nights (non-members)
- £20-30 takeaway / communal dinner / cave snacks / breakfast / your food and drink
- £15-30 petrol for sharing a lift (depends on number of people in the car)