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.

Wednesday 25th June 2025

John Cooper, Hollie London, Ed Ford and Mike Wise on site to do some more spoil removal and initiate modifications to the stepping in right hand (or left hand depending on your view of things) wall.

We met Dave Morrison while changing and undertook training on the process for opening the new gate and wooden lid before heading in.

HL and EF worked at the front, with MW on the corner and JC up top hauling and dumping. The corner was modified slightly which reduced the bucket jamming frequency and opportunities for improvement work next week were noted.

After 20 minutes or so HL advised  finding a hole at least a metre deep (isn't that a MK line?) which she proceeded to widen before swapping with EF. The draught noticeably increased at this point. EF descended and proceeded to open up the hole further and partially fill it with mud - at least according to HL :)

We lost count of buckets after the first half dozen but it is likely some 25 or so were removed in the hour allowed.

After this, JC and EF exited via the old route and attached our new wire to the end of the old and deployed it to the surface. MW started drilling while HL sat shivering in the draught, ear plugs in and trying not to drop too much loose spoil down MWs neck. Five 10mm holes were drilled, 4 along the stepped in wall and one on the 'left' of the hole. One drill bit snapped off in the drill chuck, but happily both parts were extracted and operations continued with the spare.

The new hole is impressively large and we are a good distance below the 'undercut' now. It made it quite easy to get in and do the necessary after the holes had been drilled.

After some wire fettling, HL and MW exited via the new route and met JC and EF who were relaxing on the surface. HL got the drill bag caught on the wooden lid on the way out.

Rock modification could just be heard from the surface.

JC and MW had some fun trying to shut the new gating arrangement. 

2 hours for JC and EF, 3 hours for HL and MW

Photos by HL

Mike Wise  

Before starting the session

The hole appears and the draught picks up

as above

The other end of the hole with rock bridge. One 10mm hole made in the 'wall' just above the wellie boot

as above 

overall view before rock modification