Friday, 11 October 2024

Friday 11th October 2024

John Cooper and Mike Kousiounis. Initial panic when the wire could not be found in the chest nor at the bottom of the entrance shaft. Quick call to the Wednesday team who said it was down at the bottom. Bag with drill and bag with cord etc taken in. One extra hole drilled to take the back of the rock off rather than deepening the existing holes. 1m of 20gm shared between the holes and 1m of 5gm connecting cord just sufficient.  Wire taken out after use. 1 hour. John.

Wednesday, 9 October 2024

Wednesday 9th October 2024

Sam Hill and Trevor Hughes. SH underground at 1815. Started clearing larger rocks from the bang debris. Then filled 6 bags and started shifting everything up until Trevor arrived. He then drilled 2 holes into the slab by the new connection point. Bags then emptied and all rocks moved to chamber above 10ft. A lot of loose stuff in the end to get out but will need a bigger team. Definitely worth enlarging the connection first to make clearing easier. Out by 2100. Sam.

I only drilled two holes (to the absolute full length of the 400mm drill bit): this should suffice to destroy the slab blocking the connection, especially if lengthened to 600mm; I don’t think it’s an area that you want to hit too hard so I would suggest 20g is used. The two holes are about 450mm apart so only 1 m of 5g will be needed. There is a huge amount of small spoil at the dig face that will be easy enough to shift once this connection is opened. There was also a really arse wetting stream flowing last night but in a way this is a good sign. Trevor.

Dig Face. Photo SH.

Dig Face. Photo SH.
Proposed connection. Photo SH.