11/06/2020 - Mark Noble, Team Awesome & Jeff
We arrived at the blow hole and after watching the video of how blowy it was we weren't upset, It was blowing like a hooker! Mark had arrived early and done a fantastic job of building the loose side up to floor level with deads - It looked well good. We wasted no time and descended the wafty hole, whilst Rob stayed up on surface as we kept getting a local crowd gathering to see what was going on.
On Rob's advice, Mark and Luke went down first taking a proper look around whilst Jeff and I followed afterward. It's tricky getting down the entrance without goggles as all the loose dust heads straight towards your eyes - its like a sandstorm in the Sahara. Mark and Luke had turned around at the current end, an easy dig down to a tight looking rift. Jeff and I took the second look and started to remove some loose boulders. Jeff managed to remove a large boulder which gained us human-size access to the rift which Jeff descended promptly. By this point Mark and Luke had gone back to surface and Rob had now joined us with some broken surveying gear.
Jeff now at the bottom of the rift pushed forward into a decent size chamber with some large straws but no obvious ways on. Back at the base of the rift Jeff pushed a squeeze in the boulders and gained access to a further climb down to a section of breakdown with a strong draught. Rob, Jeff and I all ended up in a fairly horrible flat out crawl terminating in a wall of boulders with the draught being emitted from a small crack in the floor.
We turned around at this point and headed back to surface not before checking a few other leads towards the entrance, three looked pretty promising and a return trip was planned for the following week.
18/06/2020 - Team Awesome & Jeff
As we stood in the car park huddled under a tree some 2 metres apart from one another we supped some mildly warm beers and waited for the torrential down pour to quit...
It didn't take too long and we all went underground this time knowing not many people would be about. Rob and Jeff surveyed the cave and had a further look at the end whilst Luke and I went to dig a death trap not far from the bottom of the entrance pitch.
Jeff had a good poke at the end but was turned away by the neckiness of the roof and rubble threatening to flatten him. On their return Rob had a poke around at the base of climb 2 where he managed to locate a good draught warranting a second trip.
Luke and I spent a good couple of hours digging at the base of a 50 degree slope which proved to be very problematic. It was quite relatable to the Death Series in Giants Hole with it's "Angle of Rest" - Luckily for us our slope was not liquid mud but dry gritty, spoil. Unluckily for us the angle never seemed to rest. We managed to reach far enough down for it to be deemed a massive job and decided to pie it off as a last remaining dig scenario.
We bimbled the 10m (2m apart) back to the entrance and had a quick fettle in the bedding. It didn't take us long to find a small hole in the floor draughting like mad! We dug a bit more and managed to look down into a sizable void, convinced we'd cracked it we sat back and waited for the others to arrive and show them how we'd reached the next level, then buggered off for some more beer.
25/06/2020 - Mark Noble, Team Awesome & Dylan
Joined this time by Young Dylan not to be confused with Young Luke...
Mark brought the goods with a concrete biscuit so we could have something which resembled more of a permanent entrance. It didn't take long (30mins) to have it cemented in place - Job done!
Mark left us at this point and we descended for another fun trip down what we now called "Cussey Pot". Rob and Young Dylan went to check out Rob's pointy end which proved to be going well, It requires more work but easy enough going and warrants a further return if it wasn't for Luke and mine's "Another Level find"!
Luke and I skimmed the floor back massively which enabled us to dig right to where the void had appeared last week. Its was graftingly quick work and we had soon dug far enough down to view into a handsome chamber which comprises of a roof collapse creating a fairly stable roof for us to crawl under. The left wall being out of sight but with a lucky stone one could throw over a shelf and back into the far corner only for it to rattle away down a pitch. Again feeling accomplished we sat back wishing we'd brought some beers along and waited for the others.
We all agreed we needed some rock removal tools for next week and headed back up to surface to munch on some flapjacks & beer.
