With Tav.
After fiddling with my light at the cave entrance I ventured underground to join Tav, who had gone ahead to start digging. It was soon decided that it would be better if the large rock to the left side was removed. So Tav and I swapped places and I got to work with the ‘capping’ gear, 3 holes drilled and the rock was reduced to rubble. After clearing the rock debris away Tav moved forward to continue digging, filling bags with sediment and passing the odd stone back every now and then. There are a couple of obstinate wedged rocks that are impeding forward progress, these will require some attention but that can wait until the next digging session. It was surprising how soon we had amassed a considerable pile of spoil at the top of the pot, so we dropped back to shift it all to the entrance.
17 bags and about 10 skip loads of rock were eventually hauled up to the surface. It was very warm and humid, the flies were particularly very, very annoying, we could have done with a very large flock of spotted flycatchers at the entrance.
Bags emptied, rock stacked to one side, cave entrance secured, it was time to depart. Once again I forgot to pick up a lump of flowstone that I wanted to examine in closer detail, try and remember it next week.
The beer at the Hunter’s was, as ever, welcome.