A healthy crop of the MMC, enticed by the short journey, reasonable weather and Rugby world Cup Final descended upon the cavers hut in Somerset. A local hostelry was quickly identified, cased and occupied and so the Friday evening rounded off with a few pints and a chat.

Saturday

Saturday morning saw the mother and father of a monumental faffing session. Lots of people wanted to go climbing in Cheddar Gorge (it is banned during the summer) but there was very little information as to what was available, Matt having the only guidebook.

Eventually Mark W, Nick, Matt, Petra, Tony and Anna decided to go to Goblin Combe for some trad climbing. The climbing there was very reminiscent of Shorncliffe and a number of satisfying routes were climbed, mainly in the VS-HVS grades.

Meanwhile a large party went to Cheddar in search of a sport guidebook.

The most senior MMCers in this group were Neville and Simon MC - oh dear! (Also Sonia, Catherine O'C and Beatriz and new people: new Simon, Karma, Valerie, Rosalind and Andy). No one in the club has ever climbed in Cheddar before. They didn't have a guidebook and they didn't know exactly where the climbing was. There was a rumour that there was a gear shop somewhere in cheddar, but no-one knew where that was either. So you see, it could have all gone terribly wrong. The facts are however, that they found Cheddar by just driving in a straight line for 15 miles. As soon as you hit all the gorge, you realise there is loads of climbing along the side of the road. They then hit a row of shops. They parked opposite the tourist info and asked about the climbing shop. They were pointed down the road to the gear shop, where they were able to purchase nice shiny guide books with photos of all the crags. One was with enough low grade routes, so the group drove back to where they thought it was, checked with current climbers and turned out that the crag was simply on the other side of the road. Lots of routes were climbed - MC Si and Neville both on-sighted a 6b cleanly, and then Simon managed to work his way up the 7a+ on a top rope.

Another group consisting of Miles, newcomer Elwyn, Kate, Ricardo, Simon and Rob headed off to the Quantock Hills. Combining two separate routes – Holford & the Great Road with Aisholt & the Southern Combes - they packed in over 30kms of varied and demanding trail and about 900m of lung busting ascent. Highlights would have to include the steep wooded singletrack descent to Holford at the end of the day. Anyone completing this route the following day might be lucky enough to find Simon’s new bike pump lost from his saddle bag, Kate’s water bottle dropped by Ricardo, Rob’s front mud guard and very nearly the back half of Rob’s bike which collapsed on him half way through the day…

Those not climbing or biking were lead by Barry on a long tour around the Gorge past Velvet Bottom (sic). Eventually they wound up back at Cheddar for cream teas.

Saturday night saw everyone in the pub again to watch the rugby. Petra displayed her enthusiasm by reading a book through the whole match. It doesn’t seem that long ago that the MMC were watching England in the last World Cup Final in Brecon. Sadly the lucky omen of having the MMC watch the final on a meet seemed to have worn off and England were beaten, the only satisfying factor being that there were no South Africans around to crow about it.

More drinking continued back at the hut and eventually everyone flopped into bed.

Sunday

The big event on Sunday was 10 of the group going biking together. This could have been hugely comical as the more people on these trips the slower and more prone to disaster they become. Despite many attempts to locate a bike hire place hiring proved impractical and to ease the dearth of machines Nick had brought his old hybrid along. This he gallantly adopted, lending his proper bike to Beatriz.

The whole route was about 28 km with 480m of ascent and amazingly only one puncture amongst all 20 spinning wheels

Another group went walking in the capable charge of Barry. While Neville took four others for another crack at the sport climbing in the gorge at Overshoot.

Eventually everyone seemed to rendez-vous at Derricks café in Cheddar for a fortifying cream tea before going home.

All in all it was a most enjoyable meet and a good choice of location and accommodation for the time of the year.

Nick