After the visit to Bewl Water’s Overflow, myself and Snappel headed to another pit of nautical fun in Ardingly. While not as deep nor as long as Bewl’s its horseshoe design at least made it different.
Unlike the easy and dry outfall at bewl, this one wasn’t. A large sump sat at the entrance to the tunnel, supposedly to stop the flow of water instantly flooding the stream below. Unfortunately this meant waltzing of any kind was not an option. There were no ladders or stairs and with such high walls we had no obvious way down.
Just as were about to give up when Snappel joked “I have some climbing rope in the car”. We looked at each other, then at the drop, and smiled. Rope acquired, a make-shift loop ladder was formed, anchoring it to a nearby fence. This, like most things we do, seemed like a good idea at the time. I drew the short straw/piece of grass and became the guinea pig for the ladder.
Ill admit i was a little nervous. The more weight i put on the rope, the looser the rope felt. The rope cried and creaked till i was past the point of no return, the slight gusts of wind enough to set me off balance. I was left hanging in the air, pathetically trying to fit my feet in the loops while attempting to stop my gradual pirouette with my free hand. Eventually i just gave up and slid down the rope, much easier.
We headed off into the pipe and within five minutes we came to our first “little” problem. Where the tunnels floor was eroded water had pooled into a 10-20 meter section, and we were in trainers. To be fair it didn’t look too deep at first glance. We thought for a while, hell we’ve come this far, why not? But just to be sure, socks off. We took our first steps into the water and it all seemed fine, barely 2cm deep. Step, step, splash, the floor suddenly dropped a foot, “my god its cold, RUN “. We splashed through the water like holiday makers on Brighton beach, and came out the other side, soaked. I poked my shoes, small jets of water streamed from the holes. Yep, wet.
We pushed on, eventually coming to the overflow and the source of all the water, a small side pipe giving it the beans. I knew this overflow wasn’t the biggest in the world, but standing at the top with the sky above it seemed only a few meters deep. You could probably jump the thing. Once more we donned the photographic practices then headed out, water again filling our shoes, seemed to be a lot colder then before.
Like Tarzan, Snappel had no problem climbing back up. Pausing to beat his chest, demonstrate his authority on the rope. Ok, maybe not. The rope climb was a lot harder going back up. As I’m not the fittest person in the world, hauling the body weight of a chronic couch potato was something my legs just didn’t want to do.
All in all a good little side mission and hopefully well be doing more soon. Ladybower you say?, you must be crazy!
