We can’t hope to bring you every story, but there are plenty of caving and mining blogs out there you can browse at your leisure – so have a read through some of the best! If you know of a blog you’d like us to add to this page please let us know.
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Vince Simmonds Blog – West Harptree
Trefoil headed piscine located in the south-east corner of the south aisle in the Church of St. Mary, West Harptree. Photographed while visiting the church to search for any medieval graffiti, not that any was noted. These figures (above images) a ...
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How to have Mendip caves [almost] all to yourself?
Trip Dates: March 25th-28th 2016
Team: Bill Buxton, Brendan Hoare, Colin Hoare, Duncan Hornby, Malcolm Lloyd, Claire Vivian
The answer to this question seems simply to turn up on an Easter Bank Holiday weekend! Swildon’s is Mendips most popular sporting caving trip which usually has bus loads of University students pouring in and yet we were the only people in it! Goatchurch the most popular cave on the Mendips, and we saw only one other group and GB cave completely empty apart from a frog. The BEC “get everywhere” - I think not! 😉
We had all arrived at the Shepton Mallet Caving Club hut on the Friday. Bill had settled in for the night in front of the fire with a bottle of wine whilst the rest of us played around in what must be the world’s first ‘coffee table cave’ then went to the Hunters to plan out Saturday's trip.
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Team: Bill Buxton, Brendan Hoare, Colin Hoare, Duncan Hornby, Malcolm Lloyd, Claire Vivian
The answer to this question seems simply to turn up on an Easter Bank Holiday weekend! Swildon’s is Mendips most popular sporting caving trip which usually has bus loads of University students pouring in and yet we were the only people in it! Goatchurch the most popular cave on the Mendips, and we saw only one other group and GB cave completely empty apart from a frog. The BEC “get everywhere” - I think not! 😉
We had all arrived at the Shepton Mallet Caving Club hut on the Friday. Bill had settled in for the night in front of the fire with a bottle of wine whilst the rest of us played around in what must be the world’s first ‘coffee table cave’ then went to the Hunters to plan out Saturday's trip.
The two brilliant cave/tables in the Shepton Common Room. Complete with moveable ‘stal’ to make squeezing through more awkward! Having something similar to these in the Long Common Room at SWCC would liven up those long evenings...
On the Saturday Bill declined the trip as he had a dodgy knee and was was unsure if climbing the ladder would have been a sensible idea as all of us were intending to go beyond the ladder pitch.
Our short round trip was an “interesting” one. We ventured as far as some horrible drop over nothing in Blue Pencil Passage. I was hoping to actually get into the streamway but we decided to turn around. This was fortuitous as the ducks further on in the trip required a lot of work to open up. The second of the “double troubles” really was a couple of inches of airspace (after we had bailed for ages). It’s a horrible experience with waves of water going over your face and up your nose and no space to move in… A third duck Claire desperately bailed as much water as she could into a dam that was leaking back into the duck, I tried to start a siphon working, sucking foul air and muddy water out of tube that would have helped empty the water behind the dam. Realising that the siphon was not going to work and the dam leaking back into the duck I took a quick look at air space that had opened up and went for it.
The rest of trip was a lot less stressful with us having a short detour into the Black Hole Series. Sump One was very low and a lot easier than those ducks!
That evening everyone looked suitably knackered and we ate at the Queen Vic pub. For the record you can get a “proper” pie for a meal which made Colin very happy.
Jonathan Williams was to be the leader and met us at the Club hut. After a bit of faffing we went and agreed to meet the others in about an hour. It is currently a short trip of about 1 hour and only 3 people + leader are allowed in it at any one time.
The entrance is muddy, has a short ladder climb and after this you get to a chamber where you have to remove your oversuit and clean your boots to avoid dragging mud onto the pristine formations.
It is believed that Goatchurch would have been much like Tween Twins Hole before it became popular and got “trashed”.
It is very cramped in places and great care must be taken when moving around as formations would quickly get broken.
The Mendip first turned out to be that this was the first official leader trip for cavers that were not part of the digging team. So Claire and I had unintentionally beat the entire Mendip caving community to the post by being the first official visitors to the cave. So maybe it's SWCC that get everywhere? 🙂
We eventually found our way to the famous Drainpipe and I managed to grab a couple of classic photos.
On the way out we had a good play on the “Coal Chute”, rigging a hand line to get up and down it. GoatChurch although small by Welsh standards can be a lot of fun and with time whittled away we had to leave as Brendan needed to catch a flight home to Dublin. It is cheaper for him to fly from Dublin to Bristol than it is for me to drive from Southampton, go figure…
In the evening it was just Claire, Colin and I and we ate at the Castle of Comfort pub, then popped into the Hunters. I had a chat with a local caver about directions getting into the Great Chamber in GB Cave.
We drove to Charterhouse farm, parked behind the house and marched off to GB cave in good weather. We made good progress to the ladder dig climb and into the crawling passage beyond. There is a tight section that can sometimes sump, fortunately it was more of a horrible duck.
Colin bailing out the duck. Claire then took the bucket and dumped the water into shallow depressions behind us.
With the duck behind us we entered the section of a passage that we had visited before but had never found the way on to the Great Chamber. We first went to Bat Passage which is well decorated.
Leaving Bat Passage via its corkscrew like entrance gave us a starting point to try and find the Great Chamber. We spent a long time searching and initially ended up in Disappointment Chamber, but Colin “The Ferret” Hoare eventually found the way on and we finally broke into the impressively large Great Chamber.
For the record descriptions like look for the pointy rock and letter box entrance in a boulder choke really don’t help…
... More fun with the coffee table cave. Claire squeezing past some ‘stal’.
On the Saturday Bill declined the trip as he had a dodgy knee and was was unsure if climbing the ladder would have been a sensible idea as all of us were intending to go beyond the ladder pitch.
Saturday - Swildons
With bad weather forecasted for the entire weekend it was surprising to see the stream so low when we got to the entrance. This was Brendan's first trip into Swildons but for veteran cavers Colin and Malcolm it was a return trip but quite a few years had elapsed since they had last visited it. At Tratmans Temple Claire and I peeled off as we were going to do the Short Round Trip, the others headed for Sump One.Duncan, Malcolm, Brendan and Colin - complete with matching over suits!
Our short round trip was an “interesting” one. We ventured as far as some horrible drop over nothing in Blue Pencil Passage. I was hoping to actually get into the streamway but we decided to turn around. This was fortuitous as the ducks further on in the trip required a lot of work to open up. The second of the “double troubles” really was a couple of inches of airspace (after we had bailed for ages). It’s a horrible experience with waves of water going over your face and up your nose and no space to move in… A third duck Claire desperately bailed as much water as she could into a dam that was leaking back into the duck, I tried to start a siphon working, sucking foul air and muddy water out of tube that would have helped empty the water behind the dam. Realising that the siphon was not going to work and the dam leaking back into the duck I took a quick look at air space that had opened up and went for it.
The rest of trip was a lot less stressful with us having a short detour into the Black Hole Series. Sump One was very low and a lot easier than those ducks!
That evening everyone looked suitably knackered and we ate at the Queen Vic pub. For the record you can get a “proper” pie for a meal which made Colin very happy.
Brendan, Colin, Duncan and Malcolm at the Queen Vic.
Sunday - Tween Twins Hole
Sunday was a Mendip first. I had heard through the RSS feed on the CSCC website that a new cave in Burrington Combe had been discovered and was now accessible with a leader. I have personally caved in Burrington Combe many times but have never heard of the cave called Tween Twins Hole. You can book yourself onto trips and find out more about this cave at the official website here.Jonathan Williams was to be the leader and met us at the Club hut. After a bit of faffing we went and agreed to meet the others in about an hour. It is currently a short trip of about 1 hour and only 3 people + leader are allowed in it at any one time.
The entrance is muddy, has a short ladder climb and after this you get to a chamber where you have to remove your oversuit and clean your boots to avoid dragging mud onto the pristine formations.
The Water Lily formation.
A well decorated passage.
It is believed that Goatchurch would have been much like Tween Twins Hole before it became popular and got “trashed”.
Claire gets trapped in a gour pool!
It is very cramped in places and great care must be taken when moving around as formations would quickly get broken.
A close up of the surface of a stal boss, with a strange brain like pattern.
The Mendip first turned out to be that this was the first official leader trip for cavers that were not part of the digging team. So Claire and I had unintentionally beat the entire Mendip caving community to the post by being the first official visitors to the cave. So maybe it's SWCC that get everywhere? 🙂
East Twin Swallet
After Tween Twin Hole Claire and I met up with Brendan and Colin and had a quick visit to the East Twin Swallet which has some amazing amount of engineering going on it. This was a quick trip of about 30 minutes.Goatchurch Cavern
Brendan is new to the caving scene so it seemed fitting to thrust a survey into his hands and tell him to lead us! He did a fine job getting us lost and un-lost. We explored some extreme ends of the system discovering what appeared to be abandoned digs.Brendan doing a sterling job with route finding in Goatchurch.
We eventually found our way to the famous Drainpipe and I managed to grab a couple of classic photos.
Brendan and Claire in the Drainpipe!
On the way out we had a good play on the “Coal Chute”, rigging a hand line to get up and down it. GoatChurch although small by Welsh standards can be a lot of fun and with time whittled away we had to leave as Brendan needed to catch a flight home to Dublin. It is cheaper for him to fly from Dublin to Bristol than it is for me to drive from Southampton, go figure…
Brendan looking justifiably pleased with his newly-found caving skills.
In the evening it was just Claire, Colin and I and we ate at the Castle of Comfort pub, then popped into the Hunters. I had a chat with a local caver about directions getting into the Great Chamber in GB Cave.
Monday - GB Cave Trip
With a lazy start after a serious night's storm we discovered a huge sheet of metal had narrowly missed our cars and had been tossed into the wood shed. It seemed incredibly lucky that nothing else had been damaged.We drove to Charterhouse farm, parked behind the house and marched off to GB cave in good weather. We made good progress to the ladder dig climb and into the crawling passage beyond. There is a tight section that can sometimes sump, fortunately it was more of a horrible duck.
Colin bailing out the duck. Claire then took the bucket and dumped the water into shallow depressions behind us.
With the duck behind us we entered the section of a passage that we had visited before but had never found the way on to the Great Chamber. We first went to Bat Passage which is well decorated.
Some of the formations in Bat Passage.
Duncan lazing around with nothing else better to do
Leaving Bat Passage via its corkscrew like entrance gave us a starting point to try and find the Great Chamber. We spent a long time searching and initially ended up in Disappointment Chamber, but Colin “The Ferret” Hoare eventually found the way on and we finally broke into the impressively large Great Chamber.
One of many stal formations in the Great Chamber.
Claire lights up the back wall of just part of the Great Chamber, Colin is the silhouette in foreground.
For the record descriptions like look for the pointy rock and letter box entrance in a boulder choke really don’t help…
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Vince Simmonds Blog – Loom weight, North Somerset
A partial loom weight recovered from an excavation in North Somerset recently. Made of clay (weight 1070g) it was found within a charcoal rich dump of material containing pottery and animal bones.
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Dig Halloween – The early years…
Almost 25 years on who'd a thought we'd still be scratching away over here. The pdf above is a personal account of the early years spent digging at Hallowe'en Rift with most of the present team making an early appearance too. For completeness the ...
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Dig Halloween update 26th March 2016
With Nick. Other commitments such as surfing and fishing have resulted in a somewhat depleted team today, but progress is still possible with the two of us. A bit of a contrast in the weather for the walk up the hillside, yesterday was a glorious sp ...
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Forget eggs and rabbit we went for Turkey this Easter!
On Monday our boss asked us if we fancied having Thursday off to make it a long bank holiday so if we fancied it we could get away to somewhere like Torquay for the weekend.Well Jess is getting on a bit and completely miss-heard him, so we wound up hea ...
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More force testing on 5:1 systems
This post follows up on some initial testing done on 5:1 mechanical advantage systems used to tension tyrolean crossings done a few months ago. I suggest anyone who has not read that report catch up with it here before reading ...
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Sundays play in GB
Sunday morning saw me, Mark, Marc and Brendan back at the Priddy Good Farm shop for breakfast, this time with Chloe and Mark BURG… The plan was to go into GB, so we picked up a key from the Wessex. Marc and Mark BURG… hadn’t been into GB before and were amazed how spacious it is compared to the caves we had explored the day before.
We followed the usual round trip route (apart from Mark who ended up climbing up the waterfall by mistake??) and explored every nook and cranny en route to the ladder extensions. Once Mark had rigged the ladder, we all climbed up and were soon at the unpleasant duck. The water in this was fairly low, not enough to drown even Brendan, but enough to wet us all through thoroughly. Once through we started looking for the way up into the Great Hall. Brendan pointed out the route, and while Mark went up the alternative overhanging climb, the rest of us did our best to push through the tight squeeze up into the huge chamber, with mixed success. A quick explore and photo of the chamber and it was time to head back down and onwards to Bat Passage.
This passage never fails to wow as it is immensely pretty, with pristine white formations. It is a real shame that some of these have muddy handprints on, and we discussed coming back on another date for a cleaning session.
On the way out of the cave some photos were taken in the main chamber, and then we were all out in good time for the drive home.
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| Entrance Climbs |
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| The Great Chamber |
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| Main Chamber |
Trip report Jess.
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Dig Halloween update 19th March 2016
With Jake, Nick and Tav. Not such a pleasant morning this week as last - grey and quite cool in the north easterly breeze. At least I wasn't going to be on the surface this session that was Nick's duty this weekend. Jake was at the sharp end doing t ...
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Fairy Quarry Wriggles and Giggles
Saturday saw a good number of Dudley Caving Club enjoying a breakfast at the Priddy Good Farm Shop. As Keith often says, “No refunds once the breakfast is consumed” , so despite it being really chilly, off we went to Fairy Quarry to go caving.
Our first destination was the Fairy Cave to Hilliers through trip. Mike and Richard were keen to route find, so they went ahead of the group and we did our best to send them down all the tight horrible bits that weren’t the way on.
The tight squeeze on the way to Hilliers was as wet and nasty as ever but posed no problems to the group (once Mark had rearranged his ribs) and soon we were at the connection with Hilliers. Pointing out that we were not far from the entrance to Hilliers, we nonetheless headed away from it and into the cave to explore it fully.
With the boys trying to remember what they had read in the survey (which they’d left in the car) Mike got sidetracked down a tight rift that went nowhere, much to the amusement of Lucy, Mark and Brendan, while Marc carried on with Rich to route find, with me following.
Marc has done a few trips with Dudley but perhaps Hilliers has not turned out to be his favourite… it could be described as “ a couple of hundred metres of boulder choke, with one or two places that you can stand up in”, and quite a few times he was heard to say “are you sure this is the way on?”
The Red Room at the end, though, is really quite spectacular, and there are some very pretty sections en route too. Once Marc and Rich had had a good look round, we set off back towards the entrance, meeting the others on the way. When Rich heard how Mike had struggled to get back out of the rift, he was determined to have a go himself but found it easy compared to some of the contortions we have already been through.
With Rich leading the way we headed out. At one point I looked up to the left at a familiar-looking climb, but ignored it and followed Rich instead through ever more flat-out crawls, until he realized that we were heading towards the sump that links Hilliers Cave to Hillwithy Cave – oops! Turning back and looking again at the climb up, I remembered that it was indeed the entrance to Hilliers, so up we went.
After a short wait in freezing conditions, Kermit arrived to take the group into Shatter Cave, where they were very impressed by the lovely formations. Mark and I went off to take a couple of pictures back in Hilliers while we waited, but we soon got far too cold and were dressed and sitting in a warm van by the time the others got back. A very good day!
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| Hillier's Entrance Rift |
Trip Report Jess
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A Round Trip In Dan Yr Ogof
For Sunday Mike had asked if there was a chance of getting in to Dan Yr Ogof for him and his friends. The weather had been kind all week and the water levels seemed pretty good, so as we had both Chloe and Myself who were wardens we decided to give it ...
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Northern Lights in Ogof Ffynnon Ddu
Saturdays trip was arranged to head to The Northern Lights in Ogof Ffynnon Ddu. Chloe, Mark Burgess, Loz and myself headed in via Edwards Shortcut with Mark navigating via a survey I'd printed off. After a quick picture in Midnight Passage and a divert ...
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A dry dive through OFD1 to Cwm Dwr
With my original plan to go diving at the weekend getting cancelled earlier in the week a backup plan to go caving instead was quickly agreed upon
Having been in bottom entrance only a few weeks earlier and with a couple of visits to Cwm Dwr now under my belt our plan for Saturday was a through trip to connect the two.
With plenty of time between us and our call out we entered the system via the ladder and headed off up towards the step, where surprisingly, after all the recent heavy rain was actually looking low. With signs that things were safe we worked our way up stream over the deep pots before turning off into a taller passage toward the boulder chamber. With good route descriptions being read out by Mark S at the rear, we made easy work of the choke and were soon in the crawly passage above, admiring the unusual mud formations.
Continuing down through a squeeze and a crawl we entered a larger passage where we had a good explore trying to find the correct route on. With only Anita being able to squeeze through what seemed to be the only way forward, but with no obvious route, we turned around to retrace our steps. With us all scurrying off in different directions we soon spotted an opening above us. Back on track the passage sent us up and down through a number of collapsed boulder chokes until we immerged into a chamber with straws and a flat, sloping wall at the end. At this point lunchtime was announced and my fellow cavers produced tasty snacks from their bags! There were sandwiches, crisps and the all important pork pie – in the moment of such unusual delights I had soon consumed a whole sandwich, a handful of sweets and two delicious pies, only to then realise we were dining at the foot of The Letter Box! Luckily nobody had eaten too much and we all slid through the opening with ease, working our way down the passages to the sloping slab that leads to the diver’s rope. Not convinced the small opening on the right was the correct route on we volunteered Anita for a second time to go on ahead and check things out. With the green light we all pushed our way up the tight squeeze to be faced with a huge drop into the abyss! After slight deliberation Chris opened up his tackle bag and began setting up a prusik knot for each of us, and one by one we made the safe decent to the passage below.
Knowing we were now not too far away from Piccadilly Circus (and for me slightly more familiar ground); we relaxed and enjoyed playing around with a few photos. Once we were all suitably cold and with empty lunch boxes we picked up the pace and made easy work through the Smithy. From here we moved over the transverses leading to Big Shacks and we were soon ready to enter the Cwm Dwr Choke. After a few interesting manoeuvres through the maze of boulders we popped out into the final main passage and made our way up the Cwm Dwr Jama to reach the notorious crawl. The rest of the group had done their homework and questioned some footage from a ‘Keith Caver Production’ video which showed what appeared to be a tricky crawl about to unfold. I reassured them that the crawl wasn’t difficult and in fact the drain pipes leading out the system were far trickier to negotiate. As expected the crawl was met with ease and with everyone emerging into the quarry directly one after the other, it seems to be that I was the only one to struggle with the pipes!!
Present: Mike, Chris Redman, Mark & Anita Sherwood
Trip report Mike Bonner ...
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Having been in bottom entrance only a few weeks earlier and with a couple of visits to Cwm Dwr now under my belt our plan for Saturday was a through trip to connect the two.
With plenty of time between us and our call out we entered the system via the ladder and headed off up towards the step, where surprisingly, after all the recent heavy rain was actually looking low. With signs that things were safe we worked our way up stream over the deep pots before turning off into a taller passage toward the boulder chamber. With good route descriptions being read out by Mark S at the rear, we made easy work of the choke and were soon in the crawly passage above, admiring the unusual mud formations.
Continuing down through a squeeze and a crawl we entered a larger passage where we had a good explore trying to find the correct route on. With only Anita being able to squeeze through what seemed to be the only way forward, but with no obvious route, we turned around to retrace our steps. With us all scurrying off in different directions we soon spotted an opening above us. Back on track the passage sent us up and down through a number of collapsed boulder chokes until we immerged into a chamber with straws and a flat, sloping wall at the end. At this point lunchtime was announced and my fellow cavers produced tasty snacks from their bags! There were sandwiches, crisps and the all important pork pie – in the moment of such unusual delights I had soon consumed a whole sandwich, a handful of sweets and two delicious pies, only to then realise we were dining at the foot of The Letter Box! Luckily nobody had eaten too much and we all slid through the opening with ease, working our way down the passages to the sloping slab that leads to the diver’s rope. Not convinced the small opening on the right was the correct route on we volunteered Anita for a second time to go on ahead and check things out. With the green light we all pushed our way up the tight squeeze to be faced with a huge drop into the abyss! After slight deliberation Chris opened up his tackle bag and began setting up a prusik knot for each of us, and one by one we made the safe decent to the passage below.
Knowing we were now not too far away from Piccadilly Circus (and for me slightly more familiar ground); we relaxed and enjoyed playing around with a few photos. Once we were all suitably cold and with empty lunch boxes we picked up the pace and made easy work through the Smithy. From here we moved over the transverses leading to Big Shacks and we were soon ready to enter the Cwm Dwr Choke. After a few interesting manoeuvres through the maze of boulders we popped out into the final main passage and made our way up the Cwm Dwr Jama to reach the notorious crawl. The rest of the group had done their homework and questioned some footage from a ‘Keith Caver Production’ video which showed what appeared to be a tricky crawl about to unfold. I reassured them that the crawl wasn’t difficult and in fact the drain pipes leading out the system were far trickier to negotiate. As expected the crawl was met with ease and with everyone emerging into the quarry directly one after the other, it seems to be that I was the only one to struggle with the pipes!!
Present: Mike, Chris Redman, Mark & Anita Sherwood
Trip report Mike Bonner ...
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Craig ar Ffynnon 1.3.16
Team: Lisa Boore, Adrian Brown, Paul Tarrant, Dan Thorne, Mark, Claire Vivian.St David's Day. What better time to visit the spectacular Hall of the Mountain King? Two of our group (Adrian and Mark) had not been to Craig ar Ffynnon before and were amaze ...
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Tu Lan four day caving expedition, my first of the year
Rat Cave, lunch spotFor various reasons we are both really busy working until at least the end of March so we are not going to have any real time away from Phong Nha until April at the earliest. Mostly this is due to the upcoming Vietnam caving expedit ...
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More Bats, Spiders, Cave Pearls and another cold Hang Son Doong tour.
Cave PearlsFor our second trip into Son Doong, Ruth and I were on tour together, which was fortunate as it was another cold tour and sharing a tent made things slightly warmer.Walking towards Doline 1Assistant Guides taking a breakAt the Bru Van ...
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Evening trip 23.2.16
Team: Kim Allkins, Vince Allkins, Lisa Boore, Phil Cullen, Paul Tarrant, Claire VivianThis was Phil's second visit to OFD, but first visit to Top Entrance. Phil had worked in the coal mining industry for around 20 years and had contacted the club expla ...
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