Templetons south pot

08/07/26- Evening session. Successful session last night with just three of us. Remaining bags and rock from last week cleared back to the bottom of the railway by Sam whilst Other sam and Alex both started drilling holes. One charge set at the dog leg of Azzar Allley to improve head room for hauling. The second right at the end to start our venture towards the wetness beyond.  Could do with more numbers next week to get a good amount of hauling done. Sam Hill, Alex Randall, Sam Easton 2.75hrs

 We've been a bit lapse in keeping up with this blog, so here's a round up of what's gone on in June: Diggers involved: Alex Randall, Sam Hill, Mike Kushy, Alex Hannam, James Hallihan, James Vickery, Stan?, Ross? Skips to surface in 2026: 16. AR went on holiday for the first couple weeks of the month so SH had assistance from MK for a couple of charges. Then on a solo clearing trip SH was able to squeeze through into the source of the echo! Finally a breakthrough! Unfortunately the echo was more impressive than the pot which is maybe 2.5m high by 2m in circle, but with an obvious continuation of the cave leading off, but not at human size. This appears to end in a puddle in about 4m time so we'll have to get there and see whats going on there. With AR back from holiday and AH unemployed and many students loitering around the Shepton hut we were able to have a big hauling session with only a few mishaps with untrained staff. AR also had a proper look at the breakthrough,...

03/06/26- evening session, Randall amd Sam. After the previous weeks issues with drill bits we set about fixing this. Alex was on point drilling and firing whilst sam was on hauling duty loading the railway then climbing up to winch it up. The only issue was that on the second haul the roller on the railway snapped of the weld leaving the wire rubbing on the scaff bars. Once Alex was finished a few bags were hauled up further and a speedy retreat was made to the pub having made a loud bang. 2.5hr

27/05/2026 - Alex Randall, Oli Hill, Sam Hill - 2 hrs South Pot team had 3 attendees this week. A huge amount of spoil was cleared from the face and bagged up. Appears that the passage we're following does a Z bend before opening up. Sam has photos. Drilling then started, but was quickly curtailed by a broken bit. So instead we used the rest of the session to bring 3 skips of rock up from the 166', and returned the supplies to Wayne for next time. As we weren't planning on doing this I didn't have the dumper key with me, so will empty the dumper next week. I assume we're not still separating rock and mud? A few litres of diesel was added to the big genny, but probably less than was used as that's all we had with us. Will make up for that next week. Now up to 14 skips to surface for the year.

 19/05/2026 - Alex Randall and Sam Hill - 2hrs Change to a Tuesday to avoid clash with MCR training. Same as last week, clear, drill, loud noise followed by pub.

13/05/26- Randall and Sam. Clearing and bagging up from the last session. A lot more rock to clear this time and the end continues to look very enticing. Another loud bang and we were heading to the pub for refreshments. 2.5hrs