11/02/2026 - Evening

 11/02/2026 - Wednesday Evening - Alex Randall, Sam Hill, Trevor Hughes

The first and most important thing achieved tonight was the unblocking of the hose catching the drips in the Echo tunnel. This drip makes working at the bottom of Echo mildly unpleasant so had to be resolved. The hose was cut, and after some persistent prodding the blockage was removed. As hypothesised this was the bit of hessian sack that Mushroom Dave have placed over the opening to dry to prevent it getting blocked. The hose was then joined back together with a connector, so if it's blocked again it'll be easy to solve.

Down at the dig face there wasn't quite as much spoil as hoped for, with maybe only 350mm forward progress for 550mm holes. Not ideal, but nevertheless this spoil was taken up to the 166'. Once the face was cleared AR started drilling. Slight change in technique, going for 950mm 12mm holes to see if this produces more progress. Unfortunately the bit broke on the 4th holes so this will be completed next time.

Once at the 166' the surface skip was loaded, and two toads (alive) rescued and returned to surface.

Total skips brought to surface for the year = 8, and two toads.  

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