Trip Report - Upper Dinas Silica Mine 23/3/19

[Robin Jones]

I set off at 5.50am and headed for Neath.  I arrived promptly at Dinas Rock Car Park at a quite respectable 9.40am.  Having never been there before, I headed off for a mooch around before Richard arrived.  Before long, Richard & Charlotte drove into the car park and we got kitted up (well I did, R & C just put some wellies on)

We set off along the river and up a slippery rocky path.  We ignored the obvious route and carried on.  Before long we could smell a mine adit and after making friends with some barbed wire, we were finally underground for 10.45.

The place was effin' huge!  Vast chambers had been mined away using the pillar and stall technique, with tunnels running on approximately 10 (yes 10) explorable levels as well as approximately 4 unexplorable flooded levels.

We systematically worked our way around the mine, starting at the top, and working our way down.  There was loads of cool stuff in there including an internal powered incline, brick pillars, long sections of staging that would withstand a nuclear bomb, mine carts etc.  The mine was clean, dry and an easy walk around so suitable for all levels of ability (even mine).

We then left the mine and explored the gorge outside and crossed a very slippy river (twice, for no good reason).  we then explored Middle Silica AKA Bwamaen Silica Mine which didn't take long and there was little of interest inside.  We were above ground again at 2pm.

We headed back down to the cars to change into walking gear, before heading up a different river to explore the gunpowder works which were also very interesting.  During this stroll along the river I didn't fall in a stream and get absolutely soaked which was a bonus!  :whistle:  :blush:  :angry:

Photos to follow...

[Robin Jones]

Looking down a hole at several levels below us:

An interesting bit of ceiling:

[Robin Jones]

An interesting bit of strata:

Looking down another hole at several levels below:

[Robin Jones]

Iron straws:

Tilt your head to the right:

Flaky Ceiling:

Winch at the bottom of the incline:

[Robin Jones]

Tilt your head to the right - The winch:


Top of the incline:

Looking down the incline that went on forever:

[Robin Jones]

Tilt your head to the right:

Note the way on (flooded) to the level below in the centre of the photo:

[Robin Jones]

[Robin Jones]

[Ian A]

Awesome.

Excellent trip report (loved it) and great photos - we definitely need to get back to these, I miss them.

 

Ian

[Robin Jones]

Cheers Ian. Just for balance, here is a completely different description of the mine:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2415905/Incredible-pictures-showing-vivid-colours-inside-abandoned-Dinas-silica-South-Wales.html

True to form for the Daily Fail, there are inaccuracies in every paragraph!  It's a frickin' mine, not a bastard cave. A very small amount is flooded. Pretty sure the photo of the bloke is in a cave somewhere and not even at Dinas. It's not extremely difficult to explore. It's probably the easiest trip I've ever done. Cocks!

[Gregory Collins]

Would love to have come but it was a long way down to South Wales and I didn't fancy driving all the way down there after finishing work at 6am Saturday morning.

[Doug Thompson]

Love the pictures brilliant. :cheer:

[Philip Scott]

[quote="Sweetie" post=35709]Cheers Ian. Just for balance, here is a completely different description of the mine:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2415905/Incredible-pictures-showing-vivid-colours-inside-abandoned-Dinas-silica-South-Wales.html

True to form for the Daily Fail, there are inaccuracies in every paragraph!  It's a frickin' mine, not a bastard cave. A very small amount is flooded. Pretty sure the photo of the bloke is in a cave somewhere and not even at Dinas. It's not extremely difficult to explore. It's probably the easiest trip I've ever done. Cocks![/quote]

Who the fuck ARE these pricks? "Only the most experienced cavers are allowed to enter" this place is down the road from me and there's people regularly do the through trip by the light of a phone (exit on mountain top) whilst walking their dog. Is this the HateMail bigging it up, or the case of yet another glory hunter? BTW I "uncovered" it before she did  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:

Glad though, that you found it a good trip, being on my doorstep it seems pretty boring and I feared you'd feel a little let down. If there's a repeat trip I'll try to show up and locate Blue Silica.