“That’s not a cave.”

I looked into the depression that was only partly covered by the sweet-smelling shrubbery. This whole place had burned badly last summer, you could tell. There were scorched tree-stumps poking out of the rapidly regrowing heather and thyme. But the place was still so tinder-dry that naked flames were completely banned that summer across the whole national park.

“Je t’ajure, elle est là!”

I jump in, feeling a bit of a dickhead. I’m sweating and uncomfortable in my caving oversuit and boots. A quick glance around and still I don’t see the entrance.

“Put your hand down there.”

I dangle my fingers where he pointed and I could feel the welcoming, cool exhalation from the cave.

“That’s it? Tell me you’re joking!”

With an ear-to-ear grin, he assured me that was in fact the entrance. My stomach leapt. That’s not possible! Although I should really have known better. Of course it was possible. If there was one thing I’d learnt, it was that if Sylvain could do it then, in theory, I could. Sylvain Zibrowius is a giant amongst men. Standing nearly seven feet tall, he’d been in pretty much every cave worth mentioning in the south of France.

Certain qualities are good for caving, and some certainly are not. A few of the more well-endowed girls in our group had a hard time in the tight squeezes. Being tall means you have long limbs – not helpful at all when you have to inch your way around u-bends underground. Joints bend, bones do not. Have you ever tried getting a sofa out of a house and down a set of stairs? Nuff said!

This hole was called L’Aven du Cerceuil – Coffin Cave. How apt. Reassurances that this was only due to the shape of the entrance did little to allay my rising anxiety. The gap where the breeze came from was minute. Imagine the size of the computer keyboard in front of you. But not quite so wide.

The rest of our group caught us up and confirmed that this was indeed the cave and proceded to get the rope and equipment out. This cave went down 155 metres according to the topo I was using. Most of it was vertical – hence the bags and bags of ropes. Stuff like this you really needed a strong team to attempt.  

Trips such as this one didn’t just happen. You meet up the night before to study the maps, when one was available. You’d look at the order of the shafts and take ropes of the right size and bag them in the correct order. You need anchors, tools, water, carbide, emergency kit. It takes a lot just to get to the bottom of a hole. And even more to get out.

Under the scorching sun, I pulled on the top half of my fleece, put my arms into my oversuit, and fired up my carbide lamp. Sylvain had already disappeared down the hole to my astonishment. All I could see was one arm holding onto the anchor point by the entrée.

“Go in feet first, I’m waiting just inside to make sure you get in ok.”

Feet went in fine. I had to wriggle my hips painfully and half turn around so that my stomach was facing the ground. Jesus this was tight! I had a moment when it came to getting the rest of me in, though. My broad shoulders in particular. At a friend’s suggestion, I put one arm down by my side and reached up and out with the other. This serves to narrow your profile just a little bit. And “pop”, I’m in.

I quietly murmured goodbye to the daylight. It was blessedly cool inside the entrance hall to the cave.

“That was the easy bit!”

“I hate you.”

To make an understatement, what followed was rather unpleasant.

While I was struggling to get in, Sylvain had already rigged the next step. Bolts, anchors and karabiners strategically placed kept the ropes we would be using away from the sharp edges of the cave walls. The next two puits (shafts) dropped us 70 metres down. The route we were following was that of a natural rift, about 10 metres wide but less than a foot in breadth.

Down, down, down.

Occasionally, I’d get stuck in the narrow bits. Either my helmet or my chest would betray me, trapping me between the rock walls, and my decent would abruptly and painfully halt. I’d stop and chill a second, get my breathing back and slow my pulse. Panic causes the body to expand, wedging you even more tightly. You have to fight every instinct to scream and claw your way back toward the daylight. “Maîtrise de soi” – self-mastery. It’s only in situations like this when you really realise that you’ve got it.

I get to the bottom, blood banging in my ears and breathing through my arsehole. I was a little concerned: I had gravity on my side coming down, the ropes were dry and light, and my muscles were fresh. How was I going to get out? No time to think about that – we were only half-way.

Next is the “chatière“. I love French caving vocabulary. This word translates literally as “catflap”, and that it certainly was, minus the flap bit. And the cat. In the flat, smooth cave wall, about chest height, was a hole no bigger than a large dinner plate. So what? Well if I think about it, this is technically one of the hardest obstacles in this cave. The hole is tiny, and there is no purchase around it. It’s high up, so you can’t just lean into it and climb through. Effectively, it’s a kind of perforation between two chambers, and it’s the only way on to the bottom.

We rigged a rope over the top and used this to assist us through. The hole wasn’t perfectly round and, once you were half-way through it, your hips get squished under your own body-weight, like a guillotine. (Another nasty french invention.) Everyone struggled here.

Down, down, down. At last: the bottom.

Quite pretty, I must say. I survey the unusual limestone formations from a vantage point on a rock. They put me in mind of a huge, old church organ, but hardly worth the blood, sweat and tears to get here. The cave ends in a large, still pool of silvery water. As the others arrive behind me, Sylvain consults his soggy map. I peer over his shoulder.

Qu’est-ce qu’une voûte mouillante?   “What’s a voûte mouillante?” I ask. I wished I hadn’t.

It is a duck. No, not the feathered kind. No other animal would be stupid enough to attempt this. One hundred and fifty-five metres below ground, and the route carries on. You can see the rope that has been left in place, sticking forlornly out of the water and clinging to a rock. The mirror-like surface is broken as Sylvain wades in to grab it.

“It’s only five or six metres.” Like this makes it any easier.
“I’ll give three sharp tugs when I’m through, then you can follow. It’s narrow so you might need to take off your helmet and pass it in front of you. Be careful not to bang your head!” Wait! What did you mean, narrow?

Before I could voice my reply, he was gone, and I was next. I climbed into the pool next to the fading glow of his light. All of a sudden, the water entered my clothes and boots and I let out an involuntary whimper. Water down in the caves rarely gets much above freezing. I took off my helmet as instructed and gripped the rope. One, two, two-and-a-half, two-and-three-quarters. Wait, wait, wait! I needed to adjust something. Again. Anything. I really didn’t want to do this, and I was sweating, despite the cold.

Just do it, for fucks sake. I dive down below the water… and bob straight back up to the surface. The air trapped in my suit made me too buoyant. I sat in the water and let it bubble out, like a nervous fart. A deep breath and I was committed. Under the water, all was quiet. With my backup electric lamp turned on, I could just about make out the tube of rock in front of me, with the rope passing through. I could see legs and another welcoming lamp not too far away and focused on that. I pulled hard on the rope as my booted feet couldn’t get much purchase, and prayed that my breath would hold out.

Of course it did. And there was a reward awaiting me on the other side. When my carbide lamp spluttered back into life, the whole cave glittered noisily back at me. It was like being inside a diamond vault. The walls were white and encrusted with calcite and gypsum. Obviously not many people ever made it quite this far, for there were no trails of mud, not a single blemish. We could almost have been the first humans ever to set foot here. I just sat there, still in shock, and gawped like a slack-jawed dimwit.

Sylvain let out one of his huge guffaws.

“I told you it was worth it.”