Sunday 20th September 2026

John Cooper, Xiao Jin, Mike Kousiounis (Kushy) and Lee Venning. Warm and dry today, 20°C. Kushy down to start with loading buckets. After 45 sent up he came out and John went down with breaker. Stopped at 62 loads hauled out for the day. Lee then down using electron ladder as the extendable ladder had been left insecurely perched! Drilled 5 holes then replaced by Mike to do the final one. Depth measured. Extendable ladder removed and charge set up and fired once electron ladder removed. There is now no in situ ladder to the bottom! 5 hours. John.

Today's loads hauled out. Photo LV.

Wednesday 16th September 2026

John Cooper, Trevor Hughes and Mike Kushy. MK got to site at 1500 and started to set up. When JC arrived MK went down and drilled holes 32x500mm. Pretty horrid state at the dig face with a puddle full of 3 dead mice, hundreds of insects and a toad. It was too noisy to communicate (with the big genny running) so when Mike came out after 5 holes Trevor made him go back down and drill a 6th! TH joined MK down the bottom. TH set up with MK providing assistance, JC helped with winching tools. One toad was rescued before the very good noise. Left for 1700. New drill works well until the last couple of inches on the bit, not quite powerful enough but will do for now. Mike.

Sunday 23rd August 2026

Mike Kushy and Lee Venning. Met at 10am. Spent the day moving spoil heap no.1. Getting down to the wash through mud now, so we also moved some big rock up by the entrance gate ready to get taken off site. LV left at 1300. MK stayed until 1430. Mike K.

Reduced Spoil Heap 1. Photo MK.

Tuesday 18th August 2026

Mike Kushy. Repeat of yesterday, several hours surface work moving spoil from heap 1 to the track. MK.

Monday 17th August 2026

 Mike Kushy. Several hours surface work moving spoil from heap 1 to the track. MK.

Saturday 15th August 2026

Mike Kushy, Alessio Sancetta and Lee Venning arrived on site at 10am. The weather was sunny and warm. We set the extractor up, then AS headed down shaft to fill buckets with MK on the winch and LV emptying. After 37 x buckets had been winched to the surface we stopped for lunch.

After lunch LV went down shaft with the large breaker. Once a further 20 x loads had been winched topside LV returned to the surface, with AS replacing him down the shaft to have a go on the breaker. Another 3 loads were winched up and then MK joined AS down shaft to make a start drilling. Unfortunately after only half a hole LV’s drill packed up (I’m going to repair it today), so we abandoned the set up and called it a day.

Depth measured at 16.15m. We all left site at 4.30pm. 6½ hours.

Total Buckets Removed x 60. Lee.

Today's load count. Photo LV.

Sunday 9th August 2026

Mike Kushy and Lee Venning set up and then cleared spoil for several hours. A total of 39 loads hauled out. When Trevor Hughes arrived Kushy left them to go to another dig. Lee and Trevor drilled holes and created more spoil.

Start of session. Photo MK.