Post date: May 8, 2011 6:43:48 PM

Cavers: Aileen, Gaelan, Rocky, Al

Trip time: 5 hours

Sold as the break-through trip, with a passage opening ahead of the dig. And as Aileen pointed out, we had Gaelan along, with his history of joining in on digs just in time for the break-through. So it was with high spirits that we arrived, remarkably early, at the cave. I'd even packed some lead, in preparation for the soon-to-follow diving. There was no hanging around, and Gaelan had to forego much sightseeing as Aileen and i were keen to get cracking. I took the first shift, backed up by Aileen, who did a good job of further reducing the annoying rock at the entrance to the rift while i filled the kibble. Gaelan and Rocky dragged and stacked the fill. Soon it was even possible to drag to the kibble easily out from the rift. There was a good draught (and not just from the cave, thankfully Aileen and i were up-draught) and digging conditions were quite pleasant. The first lot of fill was mostly gravel, easy to shovel into the kibble. After an hour i swapped with Aileen, Gaelan taking over behind her. Another hour and things were looking very promising. We took a short break and then i began digging on the final leg, now mostly cobbles. Soon it was time for the final push, and i wormed forward, pushing the cobbles under and behind me to look into the passage on the left hand wall. Very frustratingly, it was just an alcove. Below, the rift continued deeper, with a clean-washed but small passage visible again leading left under the alcove. I poked around in a black mood and after a few minutes decided that we'd been digging in the wrong place. I was dug out by Gaelan.

There followed a lot of jocular argument, with diver arguing for digging straight to the sump in the other obvious lead which had to be the correct way on, while non-divers wished to pursue ridiculously small but perhaps virginal passage. Aileen and Gaelan, in the latter camp, continued digging at the end of the rift, while i split off and went poking at the end of the passage which runs parallel to the dig on the right (on the survey this is the right-hand 'open' passage at the end). This is a high walking rift which ends in a couple of windows, one low and one high, into a boulder and mud pile. The walls are thick with mud. For half an hour i dug frantically through the windows, bringing down a lot of boulders but getting nowhere fast. After a lot more argument and grumbling i was persuaded to rejoin Aileen and Gaelan and took another look at the end of the rift dig (Peeved Penguin Passage). While it looked a bit more promising, there was at least another trip of hard digging to properly enter it, and no definite guarantee that it continued more than the visible metre. I did a bit of poking, and then let Gaelan and Aileen in for a final effort. Aileen took some photographs of the ends of both digs, with which we hope to jog the memories of Tim Fogg and John Kelly as to the way on. We hurried out of the cave, later than planned so again Gaelan didn't get any sightseeing. (Incidentally, there are a lot of frogs in the cave, at least five now.)

Reflecting on the way back, while co-driving for Aileen, it is probable that we've dug the correct passage, and that the way on is at a deeper level in the PPP rift. During the dig, the floor all along the right hand wall was drafting and clearly the floor goes deeper. The bedding plane in the passage on the way to PPP slopes downwards, suggesting there is perhaps upwards of a metre more fill in the floor all along PPP. PPP is also considerably cleaner that the parallel rift, so most likely takes the flow while other passage backs up with static water; there is a lot more 'fresh' vegetation in the PPP fill too. The parallel rift dig is also upwards, not the most promising direction. In any case, more digging is needed, in whichever direction is picked. And more argument between the Aeolists and Neptunists...

Al