Freda,s Hole Connected to pollthanarees Cave

Freda's Hole 5th October 2026

Nathaniel, Ray and Andy

Freda's connected to Pollthanarees?

The second dive of Sump 2 Freda's yeilded very exciting results! The enterance to the sump is a very tight 0 visibility squeeze for 15m, at 5m there is a head sized airbell where one must pass over the line and again 5m later when the headway gets too small must pass over the line again to open into wide sumped passage ~3m wide. This was followed to the end of the derbyshire tube where a new reel was attached and continued. After 10m further the sump broke surface once again and a section of 30m of canal was followed with debris, flies and broken glass noted. There was a medium boulder choke aven on the corner and a small inlet noted. following this canal and a further 3rd sumped section it broke surface once again into a massive boulder collapse. I made a final belay here and followed the streamway into the choke slightly. stressed for callout time with the sherpas I made my way back, taking a line survey and grade 1 survey of the walls.

max depth -2.4m. While driving back I realized I recognised the boulder chamber and think it is in Basement Chamber of Pollthanarees. All that needs done is a revisit to the Chamber to confirm the connection. If anyone visits the cave before us please do let me know!

Total length 70m extension.

The next day we went in to Pollthanarees and comfirm the line to basement chamber ,also to another stream level chamber via the Sump 3, which the other side can also be got to via the river level several ducks.

Also Ray dug out a passage at basement by a upwards rift to near the suface, Nathaniel pushed the inlet to climb up to the boulder choke towards the North passages in Cats Hole area.

We also visited Cats Hole B and did some widening at it and tried to work out a way down to the waterfall sumped area.