14/5/24 First visit after winter floods

Estelle Sandford, Jonathan Riley underground, Mike Moxon, Fran Campbell, James Begley and Stu Lindsay didn’t go underground. 

15mins

Estelle & Jon kitted up and headed down. There was polystyrene and plastic containers/tubs at the top of the steps indicating the water levels were higher than we’d originally thought from photos but think the peak was from Storm Henk in January from Kevin’s photos! Reasonable amount of cleanup work required on surface and in the spoil area as bags, buckets, etc. are everywhere! Headed down and while it’s a bit slimey from being under water for so long, there are little signs of any movement of mud or rocks from roof, etc. At the end, the conveyor belt was clear and above water, but the end of the dig is about 1-1.5m underwater still. Not quite diggable, but probably only a week or two if we get reasonably dry weather. Headed off to the Waldegrave after where Stu joined us. Discussed that it is worth a team going over next week to do some cleanup work and check levels with a hope we will be back in digging within the next couple of weeks. 

Edited to add the highest point of flooding from 24/2/24 from Kevin.