Pete
Hann & Myself. Just the two of
us, quite a bit of time spent clearing the bottom of the dig of rock. Three 8mm holes
drilled approx. 800mm deep. Fired, retired. Interestingly
there was very little draught today and virtually no bang fumes followed us up
the pitch. Adrian.
Aidan Harrison, James (?), Pete Hann, Jude and Myself. A different
team to usual, with NikNak baby sitting and John Cooper recuperating from an
operation on his ear we managed to borrow Aidan from the Thursday team and
James has now moved to the West Country, so he might become a regular digger. Clatch &
rock hauled up from the bottom reducing the pile at the bottom (a bit). Adrian.
Pete, Jude & Myself. All down the cave. Jude was left to rig the replacement ropes on the pitches which were due for a change, probably overdue. Pete and I had two objectives today.
1) to improve the bucket access at the top of the pitch by removing a block of rock from the Right-hand side of the pitch. So two 16mm holes drilled in the rock for later.
2) Both of us to the bottom and 4 8mm x 800mm holes drilled in the large rock in the South wall. 3 metres of 20gm used, fired from the bottom of the shaft.
We then went up and used some plug & feathers to crack off a large chunk of rock, off the top of the pitch. Unfortunately, it fell down the shaft, didn’t stop at the ledge, with a resounding crash when it did hit the bottom.
After letting the fumes clear for about 10 minutes we decided to have a look and see what damage we had caused.
The bang had removed quite a bit of the rock and with a crowbar the majority of the boulder was pulled out. Looking in the hole reveals, large boulders that are coated in stal with gaps in between, but no draught? 100 – 200mm of mud on the floor with a layer of stal on top.
So a successful bang and certainly worth doing a couple more bangs along there, to see what it does?