20/12/22 underwater again...

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Jonathan Riley, Chris George, Dave Walker, Stu Lindsay, Mike Moxon, Mark Edwards (MCG) + Paul Quinton (MCG)

45mins
Headed in expecting to find it diggable but with perhaps the pool before quite high, but we were wrong. It had rained extremely heavily over the last 48hours until Tuesday 5am-ish with around 1.5inches of rain falling in the area and all local river levels were up and many mini-streams flowing along the roads as drains or drainage channels couldn't cope. The end chamber was at least a metre deep above the hole in the floor, although the pool area was not up to the level of the grill, so this means that the water levels probably came up rather than flowed down, unless the pool has gained more of a leak at a level since previously!
We can only surmise that either this is water table level at this point in time - may be possible to verify with a comparison to the bore hole levels, or the hole in the floor ongoing passage is too small to cope with the recent rain (or possibly become blocked) or possibly that due to the proximity of the pond to the end of the dig, maybe there is an overspill level which enters the passage ahead of us and doing so faster than it can drain. This is all guess work, and hopefully by the time we are next back in the new year, we will have had enough dry days for it to have drained away again...

13/12/22

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Mike Wise, Jonathan Riley, David Walker, Chris George

2hrs

Arrived to find that there was no sign of water in the bottom of our new hole, that had all drained away since last week. We all came down at the start to take a look before letting Dave loose on digging around it. A few small boulders removed and plenty of mud of varying consistency. Everyone else spread up the passage to haul and work and Jon/Mike M at the top by the railway added to the buckets by adding some shelf so there is more stacking space there. It was quite cold outside, so did all the clearing as a batch from the other end of the railway. James took over and dug for a while and then Estelle & Jon came down for a look and Jon took over digging to the right of the dig. The ceiling centre arches to the right of the hole and everything there is mud/rocks, so we need to clear that to get an idea what is going on there as there may be wider ways into the void nearer the centre of the passage possibly, but also need to expose all the rock to the right to decide if it needs chemical persuasion or not. The hole itself is bigger, but more of a rift shape and there is lumps of churt on the walls just inside, which may break off, but currently only about 6" wide, but a couple of foot long. You can get your legs in a bit and not reach the bottom, but going in head first, you can't really see anything yet. The water in the pool above had nearly all drained away, but there had been no rain, just ice/cold weather since last week. 

Photos below are start and end of digging session (Chris's knee in it for scale!)

6/12/22 glug, glug, glug

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Fran Campbell, Stu Lindsay

2hrs

Estelle went in to dig, the grill was a good 6inches or more above water, but the pool at the end was not that much lower than last week when Mike W was digging. Estelle set to filling buckets, pool lapped the top of wellies a few times and meant wet socks... Everyone was underground as there wasn't enough to move to the surface. Still easy digging and around 10 buckets before the end, Estelle put a crowbar under a rock in the floor and there was a very audible glug, glug, glug and the pool started draining. This continued and then a hole in the floor appeared with a pool/passage below. Much of the remaining buckets were filled with the gloopy mud in the pool with a little digging around the hole. The hole itself is around 4 inches wide by 8 inches long at present. It isn't clear if when the spoil/boulders are removed we can get in without chemical persuasion, but on arm length plus crow bar, it wasn't possible to reach the water below quite. Dropping small rocks into it gave a good sploosh, so think it's got some depth. We will no doubt find out more in the coming weeks as we make the hole bigger. 

29/11/22 dried enough to dig

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Jonathan Riley, Mike Wise

2hrs

No rain since the preceding Saturday night, so dig had a change to dry. Mike M headed into the end and came back reporting that the grill pool was still above the grill with water, but the end had drained down to just under wellie height so diggable. As the pool was lapping the dam, 2 of the big barrels were filled with water and put aside to stop it overflowing. The haul runs really smoothly with it so wet and it floats back over the join! About 50 buckets of spoil dug by Mike W and removed to surface in 2 stints, it was all easy emptying too, turning into mudcastles when buckets upturned. At the end of the digging, we emptied the barrels of water and bailed more water into the end, hopeful that it would drain away as the end does seem to drain faster than the pool. The pool is being fed by a fairly healthy drip near the start though. Long range forecast looking colder but drier, so fingers crossed it will be lower again next week. Waldegrave closed too early for us tonight as no darts, so headed to Hunters instead.