I had heard that the old oil drum digs had been taken out and all
of the falls renovated with new reinforcements. We needed to take a look and
with our 4 gas meter having a new oxygen sensor, what better place than
Scaleburn (renowned for its bad air past the digs) to test it out.
Pete
had his old stinky out with him this weekend, so that is always an interesting
take on lighting. We had a quick visit to the horse gin chamber, then carried
on to the digs. Wow, what impressive work, no worries about getting squished
with the current version of supports. Once through the oxygen started to drop
and soon we where treated to disco lighting and wailing. Sensor working
nicely.
Rather than going up into any workings we decided to go to the
end first. We reached the Roy Fellows 'Union Jack Flag' junction and the
crosscut with the deep sump that goes to the Quarry Hazel with J. Teasdale's
rise above. Past the junction the water started to get much deeper, just over
knee height. Carrying along the level to one of the bigger falls, Pete went
past it and then returned saying that the one after that was terminal. I guess
that there is around another 150-200m of level past the fall before the
forehead, near the forehead there are larger flats that are accessed via rises
into the Scaleburn Top Sills levels. Our breathing was a little laboured now as
the oxygen was down to just below 17% (question is - was it or was it
paranoia?). We decided to take it easy walking back.
When we reached the
area where you can climb into the flats above the horse level, we headed up
into them and the air became much fresher with oxygen rising to 19.5%. This
made us wonder if the air is actually 'bad' or whether it is being displaced
with a higher concentration of carbon dioxide. The flats here have the
impressive open wooden ore chute along with some shovels, tins and other
artefacts. Once we finished looking round, we returned to the horse gin chamber
to have lunch and then it was back out. |
