Mike's email digging log, continuing from the 20th Oct' from John's log.

Saturday 22nd Oct':

Mk and gn. Set to work on the muddy pool at the bottom of the bedding. Several hours of clearing, building up retaining walls for stacking. Just cleared the wet mud and started getting into gritty stuff. Draught change noticeably as evening came, as expected of course.

Sunday 23rd:

Mk, Mb, Mike waterworth and Olivia Dawson. Carrying on with clearing the muddy pool, now a gritty rocky pit. Breaking through several layers of fill and calcite. Hit solid waterworn limestone boulders around 2 metres deep, with bigger gaps appearing, started plug and feathering. Unfortunately again not quick work, draught picked up upon hitting the limestone again. Space for stacking getting low, a minimum team of 3 is needed to take stuff higher up. 6 hours.

Wednesday 28th Oct

Mk,JC, Mike wise and Mike waterworth.

Mk and JC started at 2.30. cleared some buckets from the pit and built some retaining areas. The other 2 mike's arrived around 4.30. John left around this time and on his way out was making notes ready for surveying. A mixture of plug and fetahering and bucket clearance taking turns until 7.15pm. downwards is hard going so we started to head horizontal, had a little collapse but worked out for the best. Clean washed rock and what looks to be bedded ceiling can be seen ahead, draught getting stronger the more the pit is cleared.

Fossilized coral.

The top of the mud pit dig.

I'm back in on Sunday. John was talking about doing a Friday session also. I've left my drill in locker for anyone that may want it, John has some batteries hopefully he'd be willing to use 😊

Saturday 5th November '22

Mk, Mike Waterworth and Dickon Morris.

Mk and DM started around 10. Tidied up some more of the rocks around the top of the mud pit dig then started lossing buckets of mud into made stacking spaces. Progressing forwards it feels like the best way on is left and down. We checked for a light connection between the void up higher in the dig and the passage that goes overhead but no connection was made, we could talk to eachother though. It's hard to tell how long this dig will take. Around 1.30 we stopped for lunch, then at 2ish mw joined us. 

To mix things up and make the most of having drill batteries we had a look at the boulder rift dig. DM and MW took turns breaking up rocks in the floor until a big enough space was opened to get into something. We went in to investigate and found more bedding passage, but it feels lower than the other bedding, a survey will reveal if this is so. The new passage is tight at first then opens a little, it's about 5m wide, goes in about 7m and probably 5m depth gained. There's an immature streamway at the bottom with a smaller strike line in the ceiling than the mud pit dig. I favour the mud pit dig as logistics here would be difficult.

Boulder Chamber dig area into more bedding below.

Boulder chamber heading north (back under the entrance).