With Brockers, Nick, Jon, Jake, and Duncan
As planned, I had arrived at the cave earlier to get to work with plugs and feathers to remove a bulge of rock that impeded easy spoil removal from the current dig face. Didn’t go as well as I had hoped, the rock was large and being rather stubborn, but I did manage to take off a large chunk of it before the team arrived. Brockers was first on the scene. Packed away my kit and sent it out of the cave. Digging commenced in earnest. My main effort was to make more room at the end, while Brockers decided to do some “tidying-up”. Nick was shuttling spoil back to the pot, Jon on the ledge, Jake at the entrance where, initially, the spoil was being stashed. Duncan then turned up and stuff went up to the surface
Back at the dig, eventually managed to remove a large flake of calcite and roll it back to Brockers who then reduced it in size with the sledgehammer. Towards the end of the digging phase I tidied the access through to ‘Trick or Treat’ removing some loose cobbles and boulders and some sticky sediment. It was soon time to stop filling bags and think about getting up to the surface and emptying them. I exited the cave by way of the newly created ‘round trip’ followed by Nick, Brockers decided on a ‘traditional’ exit route. I was glad that I had taken the time to dig a channel and empty the static pool of water on my last visit to ‘Trick or Treat’. Duncan had his Disto with him and went off to survey the connection while the rest of us emptied bags, about 85 of them. Empty bags were hung on the lines to dry out, hopefully! An interesting session prompting some discussion on future prospects – all good and positive.
To the Hunter’s for post-digging refreshments!