Monday 15th Feb 2016
Sarah Payne, Duncan Simey, Tim Payne
Finished stabilising the shaft and started digging out the bottom of the shaft
Exciting news!
Phase 1, stabilising the shaft, is now complete.
Duncan spent over three hours down the shaft building up walls to support the hanging death.
It may not look pretty, but it is structurally sound.
Even more exciting news!
Sarah spent a couple of hours digging out the bottom of the shaft and we could hear the excitement in her voice.
We asked if she wanted a break, and were a little shocked when she called back 'No!' - Sarah was making a breakthrough....
Tim estimates Sarah loaded about a ton of rock and clay into the buckets; when she emerged she was knackered but bouncing with enthusiasm.
We now have enough leads to have to number them to avoid confusion.
Hole 1 - the original hole heading towards the road. Sarah has enlarged this into a body sized tube which after approx 2m seems to open into a chamber whose dimensions we are currently unable to asses. Rocks chucked into it bounce down about estimated 5m. The roof over hole 1 is horrific hanging death; none of us are likely to be attempting a crawl down hole 1 without significant stabilisation.
Hole 2 - the second hole we found. Heads towards the mast and slopes down about 45deg into a tight squeeze before levelling out and curving away out of sight to the left.
Hole 3 - the new hole (actually a pair of holes). Directly under the ladder and between holes 1 and 2.
The Bridge - a large flat stable feeling shelf which we have been using to put the ladder on, located between hole 1 and holes 2, 3. We urgently need to find out if this is as stable as if feels as it could just be a bit of jammed capping and there may be a sizeable drop underneath.
We now have a can of smoke, and the results are puzzling.
The smoke clears almost instantly, but there is very little air movement in the shaft.
The best way to describe how it feels is like this.... If we are breaking into the roof of a railway tunnel with a draught down it, and all three holes are connected to the tunnel.
This would also explain the puzzle of why the shaft feels so well ventilated, even though the lid is airtight and the soil in the field is thick clay. We have been wondering how air moves out of the shaft. Maybe it doesn't; maybe the air is being circulated via a tunnel running underneath.
If you look at the photos, you can see there are still plastic sacks and sheep remains on the floor of the shaft.
We think that if we spend the next session digging out the bottom of the shaft then maybe it will drop into the presumed tunnel (cave passage, mine) underneath.
This would be wonderful as it would mean we never have to crawl through hole 1....
Time for some photos
This is nearly all new wall...
Behind it was a gaping void full of boulders held in by nothing other than suction from the clay.
The left hand side of the new wall is supporting the base of the ginging, and the two original looking boulders on the right had no visible means of support and were classed as hanging death.
As you can see, everything now looks ship-shape and there is even a decent sized shelf to place an honorary Tankard on.
During the stabilisation, Time and Duncan had chucked vast quantities of clay down the shaft from cleaning the sides of the shaft. This was added to by cement slops from mis-guided throws into the cracks. The level of the new rubbish was pretty much back to where we started when we had our first session removing stuff from the bottom of the shaft, apart from the way on to hole 2 is still visible!
Bitterly cold Northerly winds were kept at bay using the two Landies as windbreaks. The sunshine was wonderful!
Here's excita-pup Sarah emerging after her breakthrough.
Sarah had been lying in mud and clay with a high proportion of dead sheep. I think it's fair to say she stank! The weird thing was that although the top of the shaft was fairly ripe, the air at bottom was sweet and clean.
Looking down from the bottom ladder. Hole 2 is on the right, Hole 3 (both of them) is on the left; hole 1 is in line with them out of shot on the left. Note the sheep remains and plastic bags still on the floor of the shaft.
Looking back up from the bottom of the shaft. The hanging death is now well supported even though it may not look like the neatest job in the world...
A close-up of hole 2, this is about the size of a tight squeeze and Sarah believes the black lump (just visible in the distance) is a piece of broken stal. It's way out of reach at the moment.
At the end of the session, Tim went down to have a look. His comment that the floor looked rather dodgy was exactly what Duncan and Sarah felt. In future we won't be going down this shaft without a safety line.
Finally - here's a shot of hole 1
It's bigger than it looks; probably a comfortable flat crawl. But none of us will be attempting it as just about every boulder you can see here is hideously loose and poised to fall.
This shot doesn't show the gaping void which is better seen from some other angles. We need to put a GoPro on a stick for a better look.
In summary - we can hardly wait for our next digging session!