Speleocamp in the HĆØrault
This time it was a special camp in the HĆØrault. We booked a gite in Sint Vincent Olargues (about 4 km) from Olargues. We were with 5 cavers (Jan, Henk, Geert. Harold and myself) and Charlotte and Marie-JosĆ©. Our first cave (sunday) that we visited was an hour drive from our gite near Saint Guilhem Le Desert. The entrance of the cave is high up in a valley about 20 minutes walk from the parking. The cave is more than 3 km long. The trip lasted 3 hours. It is an easy cave with big galeries and still some nice places to see.
The next day (monday) we had an appointment with a local speleoclub for a closed cave. This was a nice trip with 3 guides to acompany us. The cave is around 1700 mtr long with special things to see. Al the difficult passages have ladders so it is easy going. The cave is very fragile and you need to be very careful to pass at some places. After 4 hours we came out. We went back to the gite to drink something with our guides. After a few hours we said goodbye to Valerie and Jean-Pierre. Charlotte and Marie-JosƩ prepared a nice meal for us (normaly i lose weight during a caving week but this time that was not possible).
After a good sleep we packed our speleostuff for another cave. After a ride with the car we arrived at the meatingpoint. This time we were granted a big favor to visit a closed cave. At our meatingpoint our friend (Michel) was already waiting. Together we drove into the mountains to the parking to get dressed. The entrance of the cave is a 20 minutes walk from the parking. After unlocking the cave it went down until minus 100 mtr. From here you don't know where to look. Everything is beautiful. I took many pictures. After 7 hours we came out of the cave. This visit made a big impression. We were very grateful to Michel that he granted us this visit. We went back to the gite for dinner together.
The next day we visited another cave 7 km long. We drove with the car to a small village to park. After a steep walk uphill through the forrest we came to the entrance of the cave. From the entrance it go's down 2 ladders into the bigger galeries. This cave has very interesting parts. We stayed 7 hours inside. In the evening Charlotte and Marie-JosƩ cooked for us a special meal (as always).
Friday was a restday. Saturday morning we left the gite to return to the Netherlands looking back at a fantastic week.
