Visted with buddah and a friend.
With a trip planned to Penrith for non-social reasons.. we thought we'd take the opportunity to explore this mine. None of us had done a true mine before, the most underground we had done being Crank Caverns.
Armed with a plan of the mine, as many torches as we could carry and our trusty back packs, we parked up and set off on the long hike up the hill towards the mine.
A quick scout around and we found an adit, surprisingly easy to find actually, and it seemed to have been left uncovered by previous visitors. We were to later find out that the previous explorers were still in there!
As we had no climbing gear we planned to just get as far as we could safely, without any major climbs up or down. We were drenched immediately after getting in, we knew it would be wet but I werent expecting a fast flowing torrent through the mine! I did find that due to the amount of water in there, the camera didnt come out as much as I wouldve hoped.
Was a good explore, there was a really good vibe in there and the bits that were a slight stoop and crawl quickly opened up into cavernous areas every now and again.
We followed the mine in, scrambled up the la porte incline and eventually came to a set of old metal ladders that looked way too unsafe for our liking, signalling the time to turn back.
Back in the fresh air, and out to the wonderful views of the area, we hiked back towards the cars. Quick change into some dry clothes and in to the pub for a swift pint.
I wont go into the history of the mine, as the copycat has explained
a lot here..
I lost my trusty 4 cell Maglite here! It fell down the drop under the wooden floor!
One of those 'dont look at the camera' type shots