Upper Dinas Silica Mine is often used by divers interested in mine or cave diving when visiting South Wales, it offers all weather diving and the opportunity for a nice long swim, exactly how long can you swim for or more importantly how far ….?
The current owners are the Cambrian Mines Trust, they have an excellent website containing all the relevant information and more importantly for this post the abandonment plans.
http://www.cambrianmines.co.uk/NAL/portfolio.html
For those familiar with CAD the plan can be imported, scaled to measure in metres (or feet if so desired) then passages lengths or routes of interest can be plotted and measured.
Those familiar with the site will recognise that diving takes place in the levels below ‘A’. Some common routes and distances are described below:
‘The Grand Tour’ – Starting and ending at the main dive base and swimming each level to its end before returning and changing levels is a massive 3965 m (or over 13,000 feet if training for Floridian diving).
‘The Western Tour’ – Starting and ending at the main dive base but staying to the West of the main passage is a more manageable swim of 962 m (just over 3,200 feet).
‘The Eastern Tour’ Starting and ending at the main dive base but swimming all levels to the East back and forth is 3240 m (just over 10,700 feet).
Happy swimming !