Caving

I've been a keen caver for quite a few years now. I've visited most of the major caves of the UK (especially in Wales and Mendip), been part of expeditions, digs, underground camps, etc. I've done some original exploration and been the first human into bits of passage in the history of the world which is pretty cool (but not very much passage unfortunately!) It satisfies my need for exercise and adventure and it's also a good craic on the social scene. I have to remind myself this when I wake up with a hangover and have to convince myself that I want to pull on wet, muddy kit and insert myself into some horrible hole.

I'm a member of the B.E.C., the Bristol Exploration Club ("Everything to Excess"!) I'm currently joint webmaster and librarian.

I started caving properly back when I started my PhD at Aberystwyth. I joined Aberystwyth Caving Club. (See Oli's Independent article about caving and ACC). I'm still a member and go caving with them sometimes.

Apparently I'm also now the "face of caving"(!) for Visit Wales.

Caving stuff here:

• Caving log — a record of (most of) my speleosorties, canyoning, and mining trips since April 2006.
• TomTom cave locations — I've made available a file for easy TomTom navigation to caves.
• Trapped in the Ffynnon Ddu Streamway — an account of one of my less fun (to say the least) caving trips.