Sunday 27th July 2025

AM - Mike Kushy, David, Louise and Jackson Morrison. 

MK and DM continued with building the well whilst LM and JM filled the trailer with unusable rocks. After a while LM and JM went off for a walk. Pretty much done and ready for earth to be backfilled around the well and landscape the ground. Mike.

Entrance photos by DM.

PM - Sam Hill and Mike Kushy

 

Met Kushy and Tuska at the dig at 3pm and had a quick chinwag whilst admiring their handywork on the entrance. Kushy and myself then set off underground armed with the drill box and a drum of sand and a BDH of ready mixed cement between us. Once at the dig I made my way down and through the new stuff with Kushy staying up in the safe (ish) area. Once in TP chamber Kushy and myself got the light connection through the better looking approach to the chamber and I had a look around, marvelling at the new stuff. Kushy cleared the topside of this whilst I came back up and then he grabbed the drill box. With the large crowbar I went down to the lower side of this and pulled down what I could. One very large oven sized boulder came down and then took two more similar sized ones with it as is crashed down the chamber with a extremely loud racket which Kushy wasn't expecting. Having got what I could from the bottom I tried from the top but everything was too loose and unpredictable so a retreat was made up through the very snug squeeze into the horizontal stuff. I then joined Kushy as he was bringing down the second batch of cement to stabilise the way through the boulders. A very impressive find with a lot of stabilising work to be done. 2hrs for both of us. Sam.

Looking horizontally Eastwards. Photo SH.
 The dig through to Tea Party Chamber is down to the right.

 

 

Saturday 26th July 2025

Mike Kushy, Ed Ford and John Cooper. MK to begin (10am) with drill, pried more rock at the dig face and downsized it. Prepped a ladder and belay line when EF arrived around 10.30. MK had another go at pushing the slope but the last little bit was just too tight. EF cleared some backlog whilst MK opened up the squeeze some more. MK finally got through with helmet off and could see it's well worth opening up more to get others in today. EF then had a go at the front for a while whilst MK filled buckets to be taken up. EF and MK then swapped places and it was looking so much easier. After MK finished there was enough room to pass through the squeeze 2 cavers abreast. Went on to explore leaving JC on the outside of the squeezes. Numerous squeezes along the bedding to the west and a few hairy boulder chokes before we eventually arrived at a chamber roughly 30m x 15m with a height of at least a few metres. Estimated 60m of horizontal passage today. Lots of cryogenic stal' in the chamber to tape off and formations. Obvious way on following the slope floor down but this will be another day and we have loads of stabilsing to do, it's only a matter of time before traffic in there gets someone really hurt. The chamber shall be called Tea Party Chamber (I suspect quite a few mugs will get drunk here). 6 hours, Mike.

MK's Youtube video for today.

Tea Party Chamber, EF in photo. Photo MK.

MK in the initial breakthrough point after widening. Photo EF.

Friday 25th July 2025

Mike Kushy and David Morrison (Tuska). Continuing building work on the rustic well entrance. 7 hours. Mike.

Photo MK.

Front doors. Photo MK.

DM admiring his work. Photo MK.

Sunday 20th July 2025

Mike Kushy, Mike Moxon, Trevor Hughes and John Cooper. MK went in early (around 2ish) with the drill and proceeded to pry rock at the dig face and break down to size. MM, TH and JC arrived around 2.30, I believe the order was: MK at dig face, MM hauling the first rope, TH at the alcove exchanging buckets and JC doing the top haul. MK had quite the battle with the rocks blocking the way on into the West, in the meantime the rest cleared any back log. 51 buckets cleared and some large rocks sent to the alcove. With impeding rocks eventually cleared MK had a go at the left slope through the West hole. Some slumping occured whilst this was being pushed and the floor dropped away leaving MK temporarily held up by his arms. The slope to the left has the biggest draught and is like sticking your head near an open fridge, the right seems to be a calcited stream floor coming round to meet the left hole. Looking vertically down through the left hole a rocky and steep slope heads back in under us and out of view. Best bet is to keep clearing the floor at the junction of the West branch, unfortunately this means we are going to have to look at upping our retaining wall game...possibly block the old haul tube and fill that whole area in with some clever walling? We all got out around 5.30pm. Mike K.

MK's youtube videos from today

The sloping passage to the left and the holes to the right, in the West hole. Photo MK.

Looking down over the slope to the left, after the floor collapse. Photo MK.

Saturday 19th July 2025

Ed Ford & Mike Kushy headed down 10.30. Ed was sent down to the dig first with the drill box. The North wall has a boulder, currently supported but slowly getting undercut with only mud fill. The first point of the day was to support this with scaffolding. Once measured a 900mm section was cut by Kushy while Ed drilled a hole for a pin. With the scaff piece fitted we got on to the main job of pulling boulders out the floor. These still had a fair amount of fill around them. The first boulder came free after around 5 buckets with a bit of help from the crowbar. It was a bit disconcerting at first as the whole floor was lifting exposing another couple of moderate size boulders. Once loose these were plug and feathered. Upon the second round Ed got one stuck and had to drill more holes to split the bolder. Kushy took over and sped the whole process up with a steady stream of rock coming out of the floor and being stacked in the alcove. Ed started taking the fill and emptying it down some holes where he discovered the rocks sounded like they were falling deeper than the current dig. At this point Kushy had made a hole wide enough to slip through into the west wall. This bit of passage is all clean washed and appears to be rift like. There are two big boulders, frustratingly moving but not coming out. Ed swapped and had a go before giving up. Ed moved up to mix 2 Daren Drums of sand with half cement while Kushy went back to playing. The mix was used to shove some rock into the west wall and build a retaining wall. The dig is currently looking very promising with open passage beyond the two rocks. It seems to be following underneath a natural bedding plane. Good session spending around 5 1/2 hours. Ed.

MK's youtube videos from today

Ed drilling pins for scaff', Ed facing east. Photo MK

The hole to the West. Photo MK.

Closer look into the West hole. Photo MK.

Saturday 12th July 2025

Lee Venning, Hollie London, Ed Ford and Mike Kushy. Met at 10. MK forgot his drill but fortunately LV had one he could bring. Took in drill and some drums of sand and 1 of cement. LV went to the dig face and cleared around 20 buckets, then HL went to the front and did around a dozen buckets. EF then went to the face and cleared until it was big boulders that needed downsizing. MK then went to the front and did some pf work. MK stayed at the face for the rest of the session, around 60 buckets cleared in total. HL then left and LV/EF started mixing up some cement, which MK used up at the face. Nice draughty hole in the floor, that draughts more the more stuff pulled out, but is hard to fully clear currently. LV and EF in the meantime removed more rock from the higher bucket route and flattened out the route well. MK used some cement to start a wall opposite the 'alcove' to hold back the ever slumpin' mud wall. LV and EF headed out with drill and whatever bags/drums they could manage. MK stayed on for another half hour and did his best to render up the upper bucket route. MK came out with 3 drums and a tackle sack, all tackle sacks and empty drums left in the lockbox on surface. 1 full drum of sand in the cave and 1/2 drum of cement. The dig face is mainly 1ft wide boulders that need prying and pf's down to size. 5 hours. Mike.

MK's youtube video from today

Looking down. Photo HL.

Looking down. Photo HL.

Looking down. Photo HL.

Draughty hole, this is looking east into the floor. Photo MK.

The beginning of the wall opposite the 'Alcove'. Photo MK.

Some rock removed for ease of the upper haul. Photo MK.

Final section of the upper haul, rock removed and rendered. Photo MK.

Wednesday 9th July

 Mike Wise, Ed Ford and Sam Hill. Carried in 3 daren drums of sand and EF also took a 1/2 drum of cement. We dropped all this at Cement Dig and went to have a look at the scaff structure. We agreed it looked sound enough with the bar ends pinned or blocked and cemented and the descending block and flake adequately supported. Mulling over whether to dig here or endure purgatory at Puddle, it was decided by unanimous vote to continue digging down here. SH took pole position having not seen it since early April, MW went to the top and EF heroically shuttled between the shaft top and the awkward boulder half way up the slope carrying 2 buckets at a time and unjamming pretty much every bucket at least once in different locations. Between 19:00 and 20:30 we moved out 26 buckets at which point we decided to call it an evening. We are all still alive and EF is clearly made of heroic stuff!

 Photos by N/A

 2 1/2 hours 

Mike Wise 

Tuesday 8th July 2025

am. John Cooper spent a couple of hours trying to turn triangular blocks into rectangular building stones. Running out of nice rocks; filling trailer with rubbish rocks. John.

Monday 7th July 2025

am. John Cooper spent a couple of hours trying to turn triangular blocks into rectangular building stones. John.

Saturday 5th July 2025

Mike Kushy and John Gisborne. Met at 10am and took in tackle sack of scaff' clips, angle grinder, drill and small tools for the work. MK went to the dig face first to assess any movement, then JG went in to look at what scaffolding work was needed. The aim was to make it safe, but also allow enough room to still dig. We opted to close up the 'up cave' area as there's no way we're making our way horizontally back under ourselves. JG set about drilling for 16mm threaded pins and starting the scaffold whilst MK went back to surface to get more pole. 6 x 2m poles brought in. It's feeling a heck of a lot safer already so we made some cement mixes to build up around the scaff' bar ends. Another couple of weekends work yet before back to clearing. Amazing draught today seemingly coming from everywhere! It looks as though we may be on top of an E/W rift about 2ft wide, clearing back the opposite side to our proud solid wall and a little lower it's looking a lot like one big wall...but time will tell. 1 daren drum of sand in cave and all empty drums took to surface to be refilled, also need to take in water for mixing. 4 1/2 hours. Mike.

JG fitting scaffold supports. Photo MK.

Looking North into dig base. Photo MK.

Looking South into dig base. Photo MK.

Friday 4th July 2025

John Cooper, Mike Kousiounis and David Morrison. Tuska and Kushy spent the whole day on the surface building up the entrance turret. John did a couple of hours in the afternoon ferrying scaffold bars and clamps to site as well as topping up water for cement mixing. John.

Wednesday 2nd July 2025

AM - Mike Kushy and Mike Wise arrived around 11. We took in drill and 5 lengths of conveyor. MW took edges and lumps from the bucket path whilst MK pushed down the spoil pit and made more room for stacking. The conveyor worked well but lacking anchor rock we need to take in some bigger pins. Got to surface around 1.30pm for lunch with Tuska and to help get his generator out of his car. 2 1/2 hours, MK.

PM - Mike Wise, Mike Kushy, John Cooper, Hollie London, Ed Ford and Tuska. JC arrived around 2pm and he MK and MW headed on down. To start JC sat by the alcove with MK on the step and MW filling buckets. We cleared 20 buckets into the alcove, pretty smooth and uneventful. HL arrived around 2.30 and replaced JC who went to the top haul. MW and MK swapped places and 70 more buckets cleared. HL then went to the dig face and MK swapped with MW. After several buckets HL called up to MK and asked for some assistance. MK climbed down and found HL was using a 15-20kg rock as a pillow. MK offered to take the pillow off HL's shoulder and HL was able to climb out, leaving MK to hold the boulder. We decided to climb out a little and let everything settle. HL went back to hauling and MK cleared the loose from higher up, during this more good sized rocks fell out and everything felt quite uncomfortable and we decided to let it settle for a while. We stopped at 100 buckets. Just as we had finished EF arrived, so MK and EF went to look at the Puddle Dig which is definitely clearable. May be a good plan to go back to clearing Puddle Dig on a Wednesday evening whilst we engineer Cement Dig. We need to scaff' frame and cement our way down Cement Dig steadily, best to do as full days on weekends. Good draught as usual, which seems to come from up cave slightly, nice holes in the floor getting larger and wall looking more wall like with what seems to be another ledge lower down. 4 hours. MK.

EF in Puddle Dig. Photo MK.

Tuesday 1st July 2025

John Cooper and Mike Kousiounis. Collected rocks and some sand from White Rabbit and delivered them to TempleTwin. In exchange collected the cement mixer from TempleTwin and delivered to White Rabbit. Too hot still to do any work. 1 hour. John.