South Wales Caves

Ogof Draenen Description

Ogof Draenen is located on Pwll Du (map) and is one of the largest cave systems in the UK. The cave entrance is gated for conservation reason, the access details can be found on Cambrian Caving Council website. The cave has a sporting entrance series that was dug over a number of years to break into the main cave in 1994. The entrance series leads into a network of massive fossil passages. The system is far too vast and complex to begin to describe here, but a on the following page you will find a fully detailed Ogof Draenen description. A brief summary of major areas of the cave follows.
The entrance series leads via a rope climb to Cairn Chamber where the log book should be filled out on your trip into the cave. This is the start of the major cave passages, to the left here leads past the bottom of Big Bang Pitch, the original way in via some very large boulder strewn passages. This leads past a shower inlet to a stream that can be followed upstream via a sporty waterfall climb to the Waterfall Series. This is very pleasant caving in more regular sized scalloped pasages passing numerous gypsum formations on the walls as you approach Knees Up Mother Brown and then ends in Seventh Heaven Chamber with its fine aragonite formations. Going right at Cairn Junction leads to the main passage with its boulder strewn floor and several climbs that takes you to Tea Junction. An easier route is to head straight on from Cain Chamber and go via Wonderbra Bypass to cut off a corner and meet the main passage further on. From the end of Wonderbra you can head right to Tea junction and the ahead to the start of Gilwern passage.