To start with, Mark (myself) has gotten over the man flu which struck him down at such a tender age and rejoined the digging efforts made by the White Pit team. A great deal has changed in the last few weeks the tiny void of which Stu got his fist stuck in has grown massively as Estelle described in the last blog, and the new bags work very well. Something to do with the fact Stu can't over fill them.
20/7/11 The big haul
The amount of spoil down at the dig has now gotten to the point where Stu and Estelle had to move bags to climb out of the dig face on the last trip. Space is in short supply.
After a good hauling session and there now being enough room to start digging again we set about filling bags with nice soft mud. The only problem is the dig face is not quite high enough to sit upright so you have to sit with your head to one side with your legs out in front of you while trying to dig the mud from around your feet and putting it into the bag up by your head. This is not the most comfortable position to dig in and don't half hurt your neck after a while.
27/7/11 I think we got something
Digging today was Estelle Sandford, Mike Motson, Mark Denning, Henry Dawson and a few guest cavers who were made to haul in payment for a tourist trip guided by Mike.
One of our main team was missing tonight on a Wednesday digging night. I found out later that Stu Gardiner was in fact at home building wardrobes (turns out they were no ordinary wardrobes they were in fact larger than GB so he said).
After the visitors had done there work Mike said his farewells and wandered of on his tourist trip which just left myself Estelle and Henry D, Henry had a go at digging first as he had to leave early so this just left me and Estelle.
After about half an hour Estelle came crawling out of the dig with the usual chronic neck ache and so it was my turn .
The dig face was now getting very awkward to dig so I decided to try to lower the floor that we had all been sitting on whilst trying to reach to dig at the face. Within a couple of good swings with the hammer and chisel a little hole appeared and with every strike it got bigger. By now Estelle was getting very excited and asking what I could see. Looking down, there was a deep black hole about 4 to 5feet deep with possible leads off in several directions. The best thing of all, the one thing we have not had in this dig before, there was a draft. It's not a howling gale but it is enough to keep the air in the dig fresh and crisp.
The digging pace now sped up with both myself and Estelle very eager to try and move enough of the boulders to get a good look at the leads at the bottom of the hole.
End of session and time to tell the team what we had uncovered no surprise here they were all a bunch of sceptics its not like either me or Estelle would wind them up is it.
30/7/11Time to hit it hard
With Mike busy and Stu on a charterhouse sump pushing trip it was left to Estelle and myself to go back armed with the generator and chisel drill to beat the hell out of this new hole and widen it to body size.
We were only down there for about 4.5 hours and in this time we filled a dozen or more bags and pulled out several of the large boulders that were in the way. This gave us enough space to get a good look down the hole but we still couldn't see how far it goes .
It was now getting close to finishing up time and with Estelle suffering from the effects of too much free alcohol the night before we made one last push to remove a small boulder about the size of my torso and left it there needing help to get it out.
1/8/11
Digging on a Monday we must be keen. The first job of the day get that boulder out. With Stu under it and Mark above we heaved the boulder up to the first ledge and wedged it there using Stu's head. Surprisingly Stu didn't like this technique much so with a little more pushing the boulder was taken up to the hauling point.
Now the rest of the team could get in there and and see what the fuss was about. The air was still fresh and crisp and good progress is being made.
3/8/11 That's a lot of spoil
On the previous couple of trips we had all used the chisel drill and this is very effective which produces lots of spoil. First job Estelle Mark and Mike had to haul 30+ bags of spoil and several large rocks that Estelle had some how managed to fit in the skip. Not long after starting, Henry D turned up and finished of the emptying of all the bags. Digging was by hand tonight and Henry was very keen to get in the dig face after learning about the new found discovery. Unfortunately I had gone in first and broke our only lump hammer again.
No matter we still made good progress with the crowbar.
To round it all up, Stu Gardiner, Estelle Sandford, Mike Motson, Mark Denning, Jo Hardy, Bill Combley and Henry Dawson along with numerous others past and present have opened up what would appear to be a small but drafting water worn passage that has a great deal of potential so we will keep you all posted with more news as it BREAKS.
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