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Penwyllt, Abbercraf, South Wales
OSGB: SN 85605 15435
Lat: 51.825786N Long: 3.661312W
Nearest Post Code: SA9 1GQ
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The SWCC cottage is the home of South Wales Caving Club and is actually a string of old miners cottages on the edge of the Brecon Beacons National Park. The cottages are idealy situated around (over actually) the Ogof Ffynnon Ddu cave system (OFD) and so offer the best base for caving in the area.

2010 will be the first time YUCPC has stayed at the SWCC as in previous years we have favoured the Croydon Caving Club hut just down the road in the village of Ystradfellte. In recent years we have been out-growning the CCC and so have now opted for the SWCC instead.

Wales offers a very much different caving environment to our usual trip area of the Yorkshire Dales. Much of the dales are vertical systems requiring lots of hanging on ropes to get to the bottom.  Wales tends to be mainly horizontal, where a magical doorway into the hillside leads into a fairyland of roaring streamways and spectacular stomping passages.  South Wales is home to Ogof Ffynnon Ddu, Ogof Draenen, Agen Allwedd and Daren Cilau, four of the largest cave systems in the UK amounting to over 100 miles of cave passage in total to explore!  The latter of these is infamous for it’s arduous 500m entrance crawl, but hardy visitors are rewarded with The Time Machine, the largest underground passage in the UK!

YUCPC normally spend a week in Wales starting from the end of the spring term. Read about previous Wales trips from out reports pages and see previous photos!