18th April

Report by Vince

Vince, Jon and Mike

Vince had prepared two skips
on Tuesday evening and these were taken into the cave. One was used to replace
the old worn-out skip we had been using, the other is a spare for later. While Vince
was fettling the skip Jon went ahead, to the bottom of the pit and started
filling bags. Mike followed on and cleared the filled bags and buckets, loading
some into the now, renewed skip. Vince hauled and emptied a few buckets that Mike
had filled to clear the runnel where the water flows in wet conditions before
moving downslope to the top of the pit. The filled bags and buckets were then
stashed at the top of the pit ready to be hauled and emptied. When all the
available receptacles were filled and stashed we all moved back to clear the
backlog. The last task was to hang the empty bags along the ladder.

About three dozen loads
were removed from the dig and added to the spoil heap. We are now in need of
some additional walling work to facilitate further spoil management, and to
prevent any potential slumping of stashed material.

A very warm session, Vince won’t
be wearing two layers of thermal tops on the next session!