With Jake, Tav, Matt Tuck and another new participant to join the quest for ‘caverns measureless’, Duncan ‘Smasher’ Price.
Tav went to the dig face, Smasher clearing the spoil away, Matt hauling, me on the shuttle and Jake on the surface. With a good strong team it would be possible to shift the spoil all the way from the dig-face to the surface.
My first task was to ‘cap’ the boulder at the bottom of the entrance. When it was broken into more manageable pieces it was hauled out by Jake who was busying himself building up the retaining wall. Meanwhile Matt had been hauling the fractured rock from the boulder I had ‘capped’ at the dig-face last week and there was now quite a pile of debris to shuttle back, it was warm work for a few minutes. Some of the rock still required a bit more size reduction, this was achieved by battering them with the sledge hammer. Didn’t count the number of skip loads of rock that were hauled up to the surface but it must have been a couple of dozen or so.
After the rock came the bags, around 60 in total, along with even more rocks and some remnants of flowstone that was recovered from within the sediment. These remnants are likely to be of considerable age.
After spending the morning on the surface Jake, by now was fed up with the flies and it was time for us all to take some well-earned refreshments at the Hunter’s Lodge Inn.
At the Hunter’s came the quote of the day “can’t make it next week I’ve just signed up for online dating!”
Going to be a reduced team for next week, Jake’s off touring the Hebrides, Tav is working and Smasher will be at Priddy Folk Festival on first aid duties.
