Sunday 8th September 2024

Mike Kushy, Mike Wise, John Cooper, Monica Bollani, Courtenay James and Trevor Hughes.

MK to start with. Arrived at site around 10.15am and then got about making a mix. 2 buckets filled up and carried to the dig face, used these supporting the ceiling blocks and building a wall on the left. The filled sacks were then tipped behind the newly built wall. Headed out with empty buckets and returned to the face with the drill. Drilled 5x12mm holes to a depth of 400mm. Feeling done in from the weekend's activities I was looking forward to exiting and leaving the rest of the cement work to another day...seems JC had other plans in mind. On return to the surface JC and MW were using the last of the materials to do yet another mix, fortunately I had MW to assist with the bucket carrying this time. I think MW was surprised on how long it took to get to the face, having not been down the new route yet. MW used 1 of the buckets to build more rock in around the Boulder Rift connection, whilst I used my bucket finishing off the wall on the left and filling in any other gaps around. CJ and MB came to see our progress, both having a look at the sharp end. On their way out CJ, MB and MW moved some rock from the pile in the chamber to the shelf higher up. TH arrived around 2.30'ish. I stayed down the bottom and pointed out what rocks could be broken up more and where had been cemented, TH seems very enthusiastic about the view beyond. I headed out and left him to it. 5 hours for me. MK.

Current end with drill holes. Photo MK.

What a huge amount of work that has been done down WR over the weekend. Joining as tail end Charlie on today’s trip I was given the task of boulder reduction - this was done and the resulting debris was moved back up-cave to the base of the climb. (take care when passing these).

We should get a bang in on Wednesday - this will get us very close to the interesting black spaces ahead. Trevor.

There is now enough sand and cement on site for another couple of mixes. John.