With Tav and Jake.
Jake digging, Vince hauling and loading the skip, Tav doing the haul and shuttle. As expected, after the initial clearance of rock debris, there was a lot more fine sediment to excavate to get to the remaining fractured rock. Progress was at a good steady pace and it was warm work.
Towards the end of the session Jake and Vince swapped places. A few more bags were filled before attention was paid to some fractured rock overhead and, after a little persuasion this was brought crashing down. Another heavyweight rock was man-handled up the slope and while Jake rolled the rock down to Tav, Vince reduced the other pieces to skip size with some swinging of the sledge hammer – there is that much space at the end.
About 45 bags were filled and plenty of rock was shifted, all stacked neatly in the entrance by Tav, who had to climb up to the ledge to place the last few skip loads, here the spoil will remain until Tuesday evening. At the dig there is still more fractured rock to remove but this needs digging out, so no rock engineering will be necessary in the coming week.
Satisfied with the effort, the gate was locked and we made our way down to the farm to change. Then up to the Hunter’s for some well-earned refreshment and discussion of plans for the week ahead.
