The RSPB team in Cardiff were brain storming idea’s for a “Big Wild Sleepout “ event and came up with the idea of sleeping in Dan Yr Ogof caves. After discussing who they should offer this experience to, they decided that the Cwm Clydach Kites and Dippers Wildlife Explorer Group was definitely crazy enough to do it….although we prefer to call ourselves adventurous!
Skipping over all the planning and organising, Ashford price (the cave owner) kindly agreed that we could indeed sleep in “Cathedral Cave” , and then on Friday 20th June we found ourselves running around unpacking outside Cathedral Cave!
It has been commented on how organised and productive the group were as a team, but I can tell you now it was a mess for the first couple of hours; a fun organised mess but a mess all the same. I was running around (no literally I was actually running) telling people what they needed to do and grabbing people to come and help. Whilst another leader and I were doing this everyone knuckled down to help by carrying all the equipment up the steep path from the car park, pumping up air beds or cooking food (sausage casserole, chilli and cowboy casserole. Yummy!) down a bit from the cave in an opening surrounded by dinosaurs and a pond.
After eating our last helpings of food (I had four!) we grabbed whatever we needed and made our way down through the dinosaurs, whom against the darkening sky looked surprisingly real, down to the stone circle by Dan Yr Ogof campsite. We then walked up the steep mountain path where lots of little insects were jumping in the bushes and arrived at the bottom of Cwm Haffes. We had a group photo at the top of the hill while enjoying the wonderful view looking down the valley over Craig Y Nos Castle.
Group photo – Credit Ben Rees
I began to tell the children about how the caves were formed but stopped soon after starting as I started to choke on the millions of midges around our faces. We crossed the partially dried up river and one of the children spotted a pool full of tadpoles.
River photo – credit Ben Rees
Whilst walking down the farm path back towards the road, one of the girls found an interesting spider much to the dislike of her mum. As we entered back through the front gates of Dan Yr Ogof we were greeted by the whizzing swallows calling above the heads of emu’s in the field.
The whole group trudged back up the hill to the car park where Tim Wort (RSPB You th and Education Officer) showed us how to put a mammal trap together.
Mammal trap – credit Ben Rees
After they were handed out to each child we met Eric Hawkeswood who would be our bat guide for the evening.
Eric Hawkeswood our bat guide – credit Ben Rees
Eric gave us a small talk and then handed out bat detectors for the older children to hold. We then walked down to an open area of grassland next to a pond and some trees and placed our mammal traps. We then carried on walking towards the bridge entering Craig Y Nos country park followed by some friendly shire horses.
Shire horses accompanying us – credit Ben Rees
We sat down next to the bridge and heard some common and soprano pipistrelles much to everyone’s delight. We then continued walking to the duck pond in the country park where we were able to see loads of bats twisting and diving, silhouetted against the evening sky.
After walking all the way back to Dan Yr Ogof and saying thank you to Eric we set up a fire in the area we previously cooked at and ate hot dogs and drank hot chocolate while roasting marshmallows and chocolate tiffin. Once Claire finished reading a couple of stories to the group we were all thoroughly tired so with our bellies full we said good bye to the outside world and entered the cave.
Roasting marshmallows – credit Ben Rees
Someone had already brought the air beds in so when we went in all we had to do was find them and then snuggle up in our sleeping bags. To our surprise the cave felt surprisingly warm when we went in as it keeps a constant temperature at 10 degrees whereas the clear night outside had gone very cold. As we settled down with drips of water falling on us and stalactites dangling above us, two of the boys Will and Ben Walsh entertained us with a hand shadows puppet show. Then everyone turned their lights out and slowly started to drift off to sleep.
Sleeping in the cave 1 and 2 – credit Ben Rees
We woke up at about 4 o’clock in the morning and considering that we only went to bed at 1 o’clock some people weren’t so keen at first. But once we left the entrance of the cave and felt the soft breeze on our skin and the smell of damp leaves and plants in our noses we felt slightly revived….well I did anyway! We then had quite a lot of chocolate croissants and juice before heading down to the stone circle to see the sun rise for the summer solstice. I walked a little bit ahead so that I could give them all a bit of a surprise. After walking down the hill and over the shinning dewy grass I hid behind a stone and waited for Tim to give a big cough to signal that everyone was there. I had already put a cloak on and my hood up and I walked over to them and asked them what they thought they were doing on a druids land!
Stone circle – credit Ben Rees
We sat there for a bit but unfortunately we couldn’t see the sunrise as a thick band of mist over the eastern horizon was shading in form view but we enjoyed listening to the birds singing for the dawn chorus. Jo one of our leaders then said that she would teach us an ancient ritual dance that the Celts used to do, I think she tricked us a bit as it was the hokey cokey that she taught us!
Once our dance was finished we walked down to our mammal traps and the first one we came to we had caught a little wood mouse. Unfortunately none of the others had caught anything so we strolled back up to the cave entrance and ate freshly made bacon sandwiches. Some of us went up the path towards bone cave and saw that the valley beneath all the dinosaurs was alight with the golden rays of the morning sun. It was a lovely morning except that we were still being munched on by millions of midges!
Tim then helped the younger children with pond dipping in the dinosaur pond where they found newts and dragon fly larvae while everyone else carried all the equipment back down the steep path to the car park.
Dinosaur pond – credit Ben Rees
To organise an event like this it takes a lot of background planning and team work from a lot of people – RSPB Cymru, WEX Group Leaders, parents and the children themselves. But I think it is important to thank everyone who sponsored us either by form or on our JustGiving https://www.justgiving.com/rspb-kitesanddipperscavecamp/ as without these sponsorships the RSPB wouldn’t be able to help “Give nature a home”.
So if you think that what we did is worth your support then please go onto our page and sponsor us. I hope this article has made you wonder what you are going to do next year for the Bif Wild Sleepout, but don’t worry it’s not compulsory to become cavemen for the night!
Ben Rees (Young Leader)