Saturday 23rd May 2026

John Cooper, Nigel Graham, Pete Hann, Kate Lawrence, Adrian Vanderplank and Jude Vanderplank. Warm and sunny, 20°C, on surface today. Kate down to do some before photos. John then replaced her using his drill in chisel mode. After a while he was replaced by Adrian with caps and pfs. Once some spoil had built up he was joined by Kate to load the buckets. When Adrian had had enough he was replaced by Jude. Jude and Kate then loaded up more spoil. Finally John went down to see what work was required to make it a diggable size. 22 loads of rock and 6 loads of mud today. 4 hours. John.

Saturday 16th May 2026

John Cooper, Mike Kousiounis (Kushy), Kate Lawrence, Adrian Vanderplank and Jude Vanderplank. Cool, 11°C, and damp with showers on surface today. Kushy down for a quick look and to load a large rock before coming up to help haul it out. Jude and Kate then went down but there isn’t really enough room for two so Jude ended up just raising and lowering the bucket for Kate. Eventually Jude came out and Adrian went down with drill. However neither caps not p/fs had much effect on the wall so just concentrated on extracting rocks from the floor. A total of 14 loads of mud and 16 of rocks hauled out today. Very slow, really must make it bigger to allow effective working. 3¼ hours. John.

Looking South, floor level. Photo KL.

Saturday 9th May 2026

John Cooper, Nigel Graham, Pete Hann, Kate Lawrence, Adrian Vanderplank and Jude Vanderplank. Warm and sunny, 18°C, on surface today. John down first to sort out the bottom ladder and dig out a few rocks. Kate then replaced John and started sending up loads of mud and rocks. John down again after a while to do a bit more work on rocks before returning to haul out more loads. At the end Adrian went down with camera but then called for capping kit. More loads of rock then sent up before finishing with a total count of 15 loads of rocks and 32 loads of mud. The bottom ladder is now over 30cm off the floor, wedged between the walls of the rift, and Pete’s new wall is being undermined! Under his old wall looks more interesting. 3½ hours. John.

Kate sheltering a few metres up. Photo AV.

Ladder doesn't reach floor! Photo AV.

Under Pete's old wall. Photo AV.

End of session. Video AV.

Saturday 2nd May 2026

John Cooper, Nigel Graham, Pete Hann, Kate Lawrence, Adrian Vanderplank and Jude Vanderplank. Warm but overcast on the surface today. Kate and Pete to the bottom to start with. Pete continued building up the North wall. Four full mixes of cement sent down and a few nice rocks to go with the ones already there. Pete reported that he would not require any of the other rocks so they were moved up and over the fence. After a couple of hours Pete had completed his task so came out. He reported that only one side of the bottom ladder was now on the ground. Jude left to lead a trip down Charterhouse Cave. Kate then began clearing the floor, sending up seven loads of rocks and twenty loads of mud. As it had now started to rain we called it a day at that point. Kate reported that both the sides of the ladder now hung in space. Loaded the mud into the tractor bucket so they would be ready for next time. 3½ hours. John.

Saturday 25th April 2026

John Cooper, Pete Hann, Mike Kousiounis (Kushy), Kate Lawrence, Adrian Vanderplank and Jude Vanderplank. Warm and sunny on the surface today.
The haul rope was replaced today. Originally a 10mm digging rope was used but this was replaced by a 16mm hawser laid rope which was easier to grip. The load was attached to the middle of the rope so one side could be used to haul to the pulley and the other to swing the load across onto the platform. Eventually the platform was lengthened so the swing across was no longer required. As the hawser laid rope gradually became knotted the bucket was fastened to the end. Finally the whole rope became too knotted which is why it was replaced today with a 16mm plaited rope.
John to the bottom to start with to break up the larger rocks and move the bits behind the ladder. John then went up and Kate went down and 23 loads of mud and 1 load of rocks were hauled out. Kate then came up and John went down to dig out a footing for the new section of wall under Pete’s North wall. Pete joined John and the drill came down and 4 pins were drilled and inserted into the sides of the footing. The drill was then sent up and four bags of Postfix sent down. Several bottles of water then used and the base laid. Two mixes of mortar were prepared on the surface and sent down for Pete to make a start on the wall. Lots more walling required. Depth measured at end of session 15.7m, but that’s to the mud floor. 3 hours. John.