With Alex and Rob ‘Tav’ Taviner. Tav is one of my oldest caving/digging friends and it has been a while since I last enjoyed his company when venturing underground. Tav is also involved, with others, in the updating of ‘Mendip Underground’ a guide to the caves of the Mendip area and the Mendip Cave Registry and Archive.
While I went up to the cave with Tav, Alex returned to the van to get the spanner that we had again managed to forget. Gave Tav a quick tour up to ‘Merlin’s’ before sending him along to the end of Toil and Trouble for a look. We then changed places and I set about filling a skip with spoil and Tav doing the hauling back to ‘Witches’. After several skip loads had been removed we decided to head back to the entrance, Alex had reected the tripod, and we hauled the spoil dumped there up to the surface. Standing at the bottom of the entrance shaft loading the skip could have been regarded a slightly dangerous position, the grille was almost knocked down the shaft before it was removed to a safe place, then the pulley became detatched, just as well that Tav was holding the rope, while Alex was fixing that he tripped and almost fell down the shaft along with the scaffolding. However, I survived, the shaft was cleared of spoil, the site was left tidy and we then set off to the Hunter’s for refreshments and a good old chinwag!
