Sunday 2nd February 2025

Mike Kushy, solo. Headed in just before 5pm, quite a cold evening. My glasses steamed up as soon as in the concrete pipe. Got to the dam and found it empty, the far side of the dam a lot of mud has washed away around the sandbag (as expected) letting out a small leak. Will have to cement this up in drier weather. The hose could also do with replacing as it's quite old and has a few kinks. The hose was where I'd left it though and you could see foam where the hole I put the hose in had overfilled. There was foam higher on the walls than the crawl through to the end, so the place would have been fully sumped at some stage. There was hardly any water to be seen at the dig face, the shattered ceiling ahead had obviously had water go over the top of it, thus bringing all the ceiling to the floor (at least we know now it is not holding the standing up block to the left. Chucked what rocks I could back and lost several buckets of mud directly into the alcove above the dig face. Then I quickly built walls around and tipped all of the mud behind them. The puddle now beginning to show its ugly face again. Ahead a thick calcite vein (8") was broken out and this let the water move on further ahead. It was at this point the air noticeably changed in draught and temperature. A lot of stuff to clear as ever and there's a large block ahead to the left that will come out. I'm feeling more optimistic now, it looks like we could be above some mud filled rift. 2 1/2 hours. Mike.

Start of session. Photo MK.

End of session. Photo MK.

Friday 24th January 2025

Mike Kushy, solo. Took in a bag of postcrete, bung with tap attachment and hose. Dismantled some of the dam and built it back up using the postcrete. Once this was finished I went to the dig face with some empty buckets to grab some sticky mud and give the postcrete time to set. Big puddle at the bottom! (Glad I didn't struggle bringing the drill in). The sticky mud was used to line the dam inside and out. Once this was done I fitted the bung into the pipe work and attached the hose. Need to render the dam up with cement ideally at some stage as there are still a couple of minor leaks. The hose was really effective and a good flow came out, enough that the dam doesn't fill up quick enough, to provide a constant flow. I've left the tap open and managed to put the hose into the boulders to the left. Turned the tap off for a while and then opened again. The water can be heard flowing off down the hose and into the diversion. Recommend leaving the tap open open when not there, then closing on arrival of digging trips ready to use for cleaning or flushing afterwards. 2 hours. Mike.

Youtube channel.

The finished dam. Photo MK.

Puddle. Photo MK.

Puddle again. Photo MK.