Note: no activities took place last weekend (27th April). I was over on the Gower
peninsular digging with Jon and Alex at Harry Thomas’s Cave, Overton. Others
had their own commitments.
With Brockers, Duncan, Jon and Jake
The digging effort, once again, was concentrated in the Soft South
due to numbers, and there is still a puddle in the Cold Gnarly North. Brockers
and Duncan were digging and filling bags, Brockers worked on the east-side,
Duncan to the west. I was at the junction (more like a bend, really), Jon at
the bottom of the entrance, Jake on the surface.
While Jon was replacing the skip, I ventured up to the north to
collect some tools and can confirm, there is still a pool of water. As I was
there anyway I had a good look at the way ahead and gave some thought to an
easier solution to moving forward. I arrived at the decision that some ‘rapidly
induced speleogenesis’ might prove fruitful, if I had some help to keep the kit
dry. It’ll be a lot quicker than digging, I’ll ponder and see if I can make
some arrangements. I remembered to collect some tools although the big bar
could not be located.
Back at the dig, we settled into a steady rate of removal and the
banter flowed freely. Now that I was wet, the draught from the south-west
passage was increasingly noticeable, as the session progressed I became cooler.
Towards the end of the session, Duncan had wormed his way into a
small space, a possible cross-rift, that was interesting but requires some more
work to fully see what’s going on. This was the last action of the day and we
exited the cave. Jake had hauled and emptied 66 bags and 2 skip-loads of rock
onto the spoil heap.
Walking back across the fields to the farm, I had a feeling that I
was missing something, then it dawned on me – my camera. I returned to the cave
and to retrieve it – another senior moment!
