6th October: with Jake. Tav took some members of the Axbridge Caving Group (ACG) on a tour.
Tom Chapman briefly appeared to show where the small mammal bones had been found and led us up to the main entrance. Jake and myself climbed up to the proposed adventure caving route while Tav and the ACG reverted to the more usual route into 20. The area where the bones were found has largely been cleaned and I suggest that they were either deposited by a predator (owl or other raptor?) some of the bones might have been carried in by nesting jackdaws, I have seen similar occurrences in caves in Yorkshire.
Anyway we continued through the show cave and up to the top of 20 where we put Tav’s new mattock quickly to work. We started excavating a trench in the area where the UBSS had shown some scant attention. The digging is mostly of fine sediment, silt and sand. Tav and Pete Flanagan (ACG) made a brief appearance giving Jake the opportunity to clear a skip run for later use.
It will require a few more digging sessions before we have a clearer idea of what lies ahead, although both Jake and I detected a very feint air movement low down at the current end of the dig.
As ever it was very warm, sweaty work and a thirst was coming on, we called it to an end and headed out of the cave to get some refreshment at the Hunter’s Lodge Inn.
