Presented by Myself, RaptorJesus, Thompski, Maniac, Woodburner and Dai
One log cabin, one week, four mines, six men, 8 Nerf guns, GALLONS of ale, brandy and sherry.
We visited a pair of old favourites, made it into one that had frustrated us and one completely new (to us) mine.
The Yorkshire party joined me at Casa Asmodi the night before for some EtOH and some sleep before an early start the following day. We crawled out of our pits between six and seven, loaded up the 4L LPG Big Cat and set off to darkest, slatey-est Wales. It was an arduous journey, punctuated with service station defecation, MILF watching and Chap-Hop. Harrowing. We eventually rolled up to the Cwmothin car park at about eleven, check the phone and found that the Notts/Derbyshire/Kentish group were still on the border, traveling in the Shitroen, we knew they'd be a while! Bored and not wanting to waste the opportunity, we made the collective decision to head underground!
Llyn Cwmorthin
Back Vein Incline
Moel-Yr-Hydd
When we exited the mine, we headed back to the cars and prepared to go to the cabin that would be our home for the next week. I changed from my waders into my DCs and went for a rummage in my bag. At this point I casually strolled towards the Shitroen and launched a barrage of Nerf darts towards Thompski, unwittingly starting what is now an obsession amongst J.U.F.F; Nerf wars!
The next day being Sunday, we decided to go to another old favourite mine, if you'll excuse the pun.
CuSO4·5H2O
A very fucking long incline back to the surface!
Old and new
The next day we decided to explore a mine that had frustrated most of us in January. We'd headed down here when there was still snow drifts on the sides of the road, walked around for hours with the only adit we could find impassible with (literally) freezing water. We vowed then to make it a priority on our return, and we busted it wide open!
View from the hill
Pictnoms
It was about here that my tripod kind of died. The quick release plate on my Manfrotto mck3-h01 (catchy name, I know) had been just barely hanging in for a while, I remarked to a couple of the guys that it didn't seem very healthy and at this point it decided to partially disintegrate in my hand and drop in to the silty, muddy water never to be seen again. Based on this knowledge I must apologise for the photos as the rest of the week was a complete bodge.
Might be a bit cold...
Old meets new, again
Very reminiscent of ore shoots in Carrock mine in Cumbria.
Old Stopes
Ore shoot with added RaptorJesus
The preceding photos are a combinations of the two days as my camera (and tripod) are a bit borked, I took less photos than I was expecting.
We were absolutely fucked the next day (Wednesday) so we took a day off. In hindsight, this wasn't a great idea, we really just did nothing except Nerf wars
We were one man short on the Thursday so we went to an unknown to us; Ystrad Einion Copper Mine. This old mine is a hidden beauty, an example of a nineteenth century multi level mine that had external processing plant and an excellent example of an internal water wheel that was used to drain the lower levels of the mine. As with earlier, there are not too many photos because of my borked camera and tripod.
We went through the mine on the level we entered, past the water wheel across some dodgy water filled pits, through stopes and came into a closed stope. From here we stepped through into the most gorgeous open stope that I've seen; nowhere near as big as Catherdral in Box mine so we decided to name it Capel. It was that narrow and tall that even my wide angle lens at 10mm just wasn't wide enough!!!
The internal stope was beautiful when lit, with RaptorJesus tucked away right at the back lit up.
To get back to the water wheel we had to traverse the pit, we decided to light the fucker up and get it shot! This presented a challenge as I had to head back and forth across the water to position the lights just right for both myself and RaptorJesus. This is the result;
The final image that I took was of the wheel itself. Sixteen foot in diameter, this wheel took it's water from an upper level and past along the camera and out of the adit behind me to the stream/river. A thing of industrial-archeological beauty
We headed back down to the stream, took off our boots and headed up the hill to have a look for the other adits. We found one adit and lots of midges, we got fed up of being eaten and fucked off home
The next day we were threatened by rain, none of us wanted to get soaked on a long walk up to an unknown mine. Cwmorthin it is then! We had a good walk around, made it to the compressor room and generally had a good time. Except that my trusty Bluetooth speaker died... No chap-hop
A good time was had by all and there was even a gift left in the Quality Street tin
The compressor chamber
Adit then...
The barracks
Looking back toward Llyn Cwmorthin
The road home
We headed back to the cabin for the final time, had some food then blitzed the place top to bottom. Whilst these photos were take digitally it was a lot more like shooting on film. The screen on the back of my camera is fucked so I couldn't review them, I also forgot my Compact Flash reader so I couldn't view them until I got back to the Wirral. All in all I'm happy with the results, I hope you like them too!
Thank for looking
One log cabin, one week, four mines, six men, 8 Nerf guns, GALLONS of ale, brandy and sherry.
We visited a pair of old favourites, made it into one that had frustrated us and one completely new (to us) mine.
The Yorkshire party joined me at Casa Asmodi the night before for some EtOH and some sleep before an early start the following day. We crawled out of our pits between six and seven, loaded up the 4L LPG Big Cat and set off to darkest, slatey-est Wales. It was an arduous journey, punctuated with service station defecation, MILF watching and Chap-Hop. Harrowing. We eventually rolled up to the Cwmothin car park at about eleven, check the phone and found that the Notts/Derbyshire/Kentish group were still on the border, traveling in the Shitroen, we knew they'd be a while! Bored and not wanting to waste the opportunity, we made the collective decision to head underground!
Llyn Cwmorthin
Back Vein Incline
Moel-Yr-Hydd
When we exited the mine, we headed back to the cars and prepared to go to the cabin that would be our home for the next week. I changed from my waders into my DCs and went for a rummage in my bag. At this point I casually strolled towards the Shitroen and launched a barrage of Nerf darts towards Thompski, unwittingly starting what is now an obsession amongst J.U.F.F; Nerf wars!
The next day being Sunday, we decided to go to another old favourite mine, if you'll excuse the pun.
CuSO4·5H2O
A very fucking long incline back to the surface!
Old and new
The next day we decided to explore a mine that had frustrated most of us in January. We'd headed down here when there was still snow drifts on the sides of the road, walked around for hours with the only adit we could find impassible with (literally) freezing water. We vowed then to make it a priority on our return, and we busted it wide open!
View from the hill
Pictnoms
It was about here that my tripod kind of died. The quick release plate on my Manfrotto mck3-h01 (catchy name, I know) had been just barely hanging in for a while, I remarked to a couple of the guys that it didn't seem very healthy and at this point it decided to partially disintegrate in my hand and drop in to the silty, muddy water never to be seen again. Based on this knowledge I must apologise for the photos as the rest of the week was a complete bodge.
Might be a bit cold...
Old meets new, again
Very reminiscent of ore shoots in Carrock mine in Cumbria.
Old Stopes
Ore shoot with added RaptorJesus
The preceding photos are a combinations of the two days as my camera (and tripod) are a bit borked, I took less photos than I was expecting.
We were absolutely fucked the next day (Wednesday) so we took a day off. In hindsight, this wasn't a great idea, we really just did nothing except Nerf wars
We were one man short on the Thursday so we went to an unknown to us; Ystrad Einion Copper Mine. This old mine is a hidden beauty, an example of a nineteenth century multi level mine that had external processing plant and an excellent example of an internal water wheel that was used to drain the lower levels of the mine. As with earlier, there are not too many photos because of my borked camera and tripod.
We went through the mine on the level we entered, past the water wheel across some dodgy water filled pits, through stopes and came into a closed stope. From here we stepped through into the most gorgeous open stope that I've seen; nowhere near as big as Catherdral in Box mine so we decided to name it Capel. It was that narrow and tall that even my wide angle lens at 10mm just wasn't wide enough!!!
The internal stope was beautiful when lit, with RaptorJesus tucked away right at the back lit up.
To get back to the water wheel we had to traverse the pit, we decided to light the fucker up and get it shot! This presented a challenge as I had to head back and forth across the water to position the lights just right for both myself and RaptorJesus. This is the result;
The final image that I took was of the wheel itself. Sixteen foot in diameter, this wheel took it's water from an upper level and past along the camera and out of the adit behind me to the stream/river. A thing of industrial-archeological beauty
We headed back down to the stream, took off our boots and headed up the hill to have a look for the other adits. We found one adit and lots of midges, we got fed up of being eaten and fucked off home
The next day we were threatened by rain, none of us wanted to get soaked on a long walk up to an unknown mine. Cwmorthin it is then! We had a good walk around, made it to the compressor room and generally had a good time. Except that my trusty Bluetooth speaker died... No chap-hop
A good time was had by all and there was even a gift left in the Quality Street tin The compressor chamber
Adit then...
The barracks
Looking back toward Llyn Cwmorthin
The road home
We headed back to the cabin for the final time, had some food then blitzed the place top to bottom. Whilst these photos were take digitally it was a lot more like shooting on film. The screen on the back of my camera is fucked so I couldn't review them, I also forgot my Compact Flash reader so I couldn't view them until I got back to the Wirral. All in all I'm happy with the results, I hope you like them too!
Thank for looking
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