Mike Kushy, Samuel Hill and Frank Tully. We took in a lot of materials, 6 tackles sacks of sand, 2 tackle sacks of cement and 2 bags with drills. With hopes of getting into the new passage seen last time we set to work at the most recent dig site. The plan was to open up the approach to bring bigger rocks out, we soon gave up on this realising it's a big job and decided to head further down and squirrel on with the hope of a 'big breakthrough'. Frank joined us at this point. Capping and pfs we managed to make a hole big enough to squeeze into the next bit, that wasn't 2m high but more like 2ft, got the width right at about 5m though. Eastwater Lower Traverse type passage, and 'proper cave' with a small streamway. The water hits a sandy cobble filled floor and heads left (looking down), digging here will require opening up the squeeze, which in turn will require opening up the approach to get large rocks out. There's also a couple of fluted rock paths heading back up into the ceiling, but just slightly too tight to get up into. MK on the way out of the new bit decided to go check out the other pit, it was then decided efforts for the day would be better spent on the bottom of our original Boulder Rift dig. Some corners were taken off and we managed to get a body length in, boulders in the ceiling again (clean washed) with an easy diggable floor full of mud and sandstone cobbles...interesting site with a much more pronounced draught! On the way out looking up to the left you can see a hole with water trickling out of it, I predict this is the other side of the chamber we broke into earlier...the survey should confirm this once done.
We then finished off by cementing at the bedding chamber dig. Really happy to start breaking up rocks in the floor here next session and there's quite alot of clatch to come out. 1 half bag of sand and a 1/3 of a half bag at the bottom, quarter Daren drum of cement. There's 2 tackle sacks of sand left in the 4th chamber from the entrance plus a tackle sack of sand and a tackle sack of cement left in the first chamber (plenty enough for the next session). 6 hours in total. Mike.
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| The bottom left of the new 'breakthrough chamber' |
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| The final squeeze into the new chamber |
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| A view of the new chamber from the squeeze |
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| Sam in the bottom of the original dig in Boulder Rift |
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| The view looking back up from the last photo |
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The other side of the dig looking back towards Sam
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| The sharp end |
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| The sharper end |
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