Gaping Gill Expedition – part II

On Friday afternoon 22nd May, we set off from Cannock to continue our journey to Yorkshire. We were warned by the lady at the Spring Slade Lodge tearooms that the M6 was clogged with traffic and it might be advisable to continue as far as Stoke-on-Trent on the A34 and then rejoin the M6. Unfortunately it turned out that the M6 was periodically moving at a crawl, usually before a junction. It was going to take a long time to get to Preston at this rate so we decided to head across country to Manchester and take the M60 Manchester circular. This worked well apart from getting lost in Rochdale.

However it was a long journey and so it was nearly dark by the time we arrived at the campsite in Yorkshire. We had been unable to get onto the sites we knew of nearest to the starting point of our walk: Clapham (Lat: 54:07:04N, lon: 2:23:36W), and so were booked onto a site on the A59 in Horton (Lat: 53:56:55N, lon: 2:13:22W), just beyond the village of Gisburn. Richard had worked out what was still wrong with the awning and was quickly able to correct it even though it was getting dark, so that it was finally correctly erected. This campsite had electric hookup—our first experience of this with Bertie—and we were delighted to discover that the fridge and the elctric socket were now functional. This meant we were able to use the the low voltage electric kettle for boiling water for drinks which was very convenient.

Rowan Bank is classified as a Certified Site and a Hideaway by the Caravan and Camping Club. Its only facilities were chemical toilet disposal, water and electric hookup. There were about another six or eight caravans on the site. They all had aerials and satellite dishes and people seemed to be watching TV. There was a feeling of each unit being completely self-contained. We had brought a portaloo with us, but had decided to use sawdust rather than chemicals. We really dislike the pungent odour of the chemicals used in camping toilets and did not wish to live with that for two days. We found with the sawdust that there was no smell at all and as long as we emptied it frequently it was simple to dispose of the contents.

We awoke next morning to discover spectacular views from our van. Unfortunately—due to an error with Richard's alarm—we had overslept a little. We wanted to get to Clapham as early as possible in order to set out on the walk to the cave to be there well before midday. We had read on the website that they closed bookings for descent into the cave at noon. So we had a quick breakfast, piled into the awning anything we did not need with us and set off for Clapham. Daniel, the older of our sons who was not too keen on the idea of descending into a cavern on a rope, had kindly agreed to stay with the van while the three of us went to the cave. As the van was hot wired and unlockable, we did not feel we could simply leave it unattended in the car park.