“I’m never doing this trip ever again,” Sam said in November, halfway through Sidetrack Cave.

“Actually, I’d do it again,” he said two hours later.

On Friday, he led it.

Four went down: Sam leading, Andy seconding, with Oana and Julia. I stayed on the surface coordinating, so this report comes courtesy of everyone else’s accounts. Probably more honest than usual.

Sam, who seven months ago needed nose-to-nose coaching through every obstacle, tried to dodge going first. “I was trying to be a wimp and get the skinny ones to go first.” He failed, went first, and found something unexpected: “There was no great struggles. Which definitely helps the team’s morale, because if the fat guy can do it, they can.”

The entrance beat them all up. The first section is wet, confined, and cold. Andy went in a few metres and turned back. Oana followed him in, turned back too. Both went in again. “The first ten metres was probably the hardest,” Oana said afterwards. “Because it’s water as well.” She had a claustrophobic feeling from the start, and it stayed with her. “I was like, why do I need to do this? I don’t want to be here.”

Andy described his own thoughts at that point as cowardly. “No way am I going in there.” He went in there. The first 80 metres took an hour and ten minutes. The next 80 took ten.

Oana hit a bigger wall further in. Not a physical one, but the kind where your brain starts composing a resignation letter to the entire sport. A lot of coaching, a small lie about being nearly at the end, and she pushed through. There was then, Sam reports, “a bit of a fight” about who would exit with her if she’d bailed. Not because nobody wanted to help. Because everyone was done by that point and fancied the shortcut home.

“We were swearing continuously,” she reported, with some pride.

The formations divided the group. Andy thought they were worth every metre: “absolutely worth the crawl.” Sam “somewhat agrees” they weren’t worth it. Oana landed on them being one of the most beautiful passages in Derbyshire. But also: “Never ever again.”

Julia, who smoked a 30-metre pitch on a recent trip, fought for energy on the rope back up. Not technique. Sheer exhaustion. The cave had taken everything and she kept going.

The return took 45 minutes. You don’t have the energy to avoid puddles on the way out, and the entrance section hits harder outbound. At that stage, Sam says, there are only two thoughts: “this is shit” and “I NEED to be out of this coffin.”

“We were so happy when we took the group photo,” Oana said. “Just because we were out.”

The quote of the night was Oana’s: “In 27 years of caving I’ve never done anything so shit.”

Andy’s assessment: “More sustained and flat out than I was expecting, but perfect training for building my tolerance.” He might do it again. Sometime. Maybe.

Sam woke up the next morning stiff (“and not in the good way”), mainly in his chest. He’d caved two days back-to-back, worked 12-hour shifts, and skipped dinner. His verdict: “awfully great and worth doing once or twice.”

Both Sam and Oana, separately, suggested the route description should replace “crawling” with “worming.” Oana put it best: “Crawling always been my pleasure, but not this worming thing.”

Oana’s other lesson: “Always read the description.”

Same one Nicky took home last time. Nobody ever learns.