Saturday 23 June 2012

Underground Adventures in the Lake District

With the Lakes receiving 1 months rain in a day (it’s deja vue for Cockermouth residents!) we decided to head underground today and recce a future Adventure for Quest 4 Adventure.

Borrowdale and the North Lakes are famous for their mines and one in particular, the Graphite Mine at Seathwaite, is especially interesting.

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It was the major source of ‘Wad’, a very pure form of Graphite back in the 1800’s, very hard to mine and left behind a maze of passages, both horizontal and more importantly, vertical, to explore.  It’s owned by the National Trust who are happy for people to explore at their own risk, and a reasonably risky place it is to the unaware.  Not from collapse so much, but from the numerous shafts in the floor.

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So, some years ago, some explorers decided to place safety anchors in the rock to allow abseil descents of the system.  And that’s what we did today.  Down 4 levels and along about 1 kilometre of passage, although there’s far more to nose along.

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It’s not super pretty, but it is very interesting and a marvel of mans ability to change the world.  There are kilometres of passage, all dug by hand, with railway lines still place.  It’s an amazing adventure and a special hidden world to explore and will be going onto our list of Guided Adventures in the Autumn.

Best of all today..it was dry!