Alistair, John and Karli had looked at Wellgill Shaft a few times
before and Karli had descended to the platform some 40m down to carry out
extensive gardening work. The shaft after this was left alone for a year or so.
Discussing what we should do on the Sunday, Karli suggested Wellgill, and so we
had a look see. I had a report from 1983 about some explorers which had gone
down the shaft so with a quick look at that I got the full depth details - just
over 59m.
We rigged the shaft top up, and since there was only two of
us we ended up going down one at a time. With children playing around the river
it was a too risky to leave the top open with no one to look after it. Karli
descended down the shaft and soon his light was very dim in the distance. He
landed on the bottom, and reported all was well. He could see the level and
with a little bit of clearing was able to get into it relatively easily. He
disappeared for a while and then shouted back up, that he could see an ore
truck, a concrete lined level heading up stream and a chamber with a pool in
it. He disappeared again and then after some more time shouted up again
informing me that had had managed to drain the water in the chamber (the lad is
obsessed about water management). Karli then proceeded to prusik back up. The
area of the pool and chamber is the continuation of the upper Nentforce Level
down stream. From a cross section that we have, it looks like the level from
here drops at a gentle angle to Nentsberry Haggs Shaft.
When Karli got
back up (very quickly, about 5 minutes), I descended down into the depths. A
couple of metres below the surface there was a little walled up alcove, and
approximately 35m further down there was a chamber in the shaft wall, with a
level going off - needs looking at again. Eventually I reached the area where
the platform had been and I could see the bottom. A few seconds more and I
landed on the debris strewn bottom. A short climb down and I was in the level
with a wooden ore truck greeting me, its contents were a bottle of Newcastle
Brown ale and a load of shale. Turning right I went a couple of metres to the
chamber were Karli had drained the pool, the level dropped down about 1m, and
here you could see concrete bricks, a wooden beam across the chamber, pipe
debris, and a stack of steel arch formers. To the right of the chamber the
shaft bottom debris was spilling in.
Returning to the ore truck I noted
various artefacts, such as light bulbs, nuts, washers and a tar drum. With time
getting eaten up, I decided to have a wonder up stream along the concrete
arched passage way. Along the way I saw tangles of thin electrical wires and
every 10m or so there was a break in the arching exposing the shale strata. In
these little sections you could find nails and in one I saw a shovel. Carrying
on for some 20 minutes I then started getting a bit paranoid, was the air OK, I
was getting a headache, was it imagination, breathing seemed OK... Looking at
my watch, I had been down now for some 45 minutes, should have told Karli what
I was up too. I decided to head back, immediately I could smell bad eggs, I had
disturbed hydrogen sulphide gas making my way upstream.
Finally I
returned to the shaft bottom, to find Karli shouting down as soon as he saw my
light. He had been planning to come down again - a lesson here. Not looking
forward to prusiking back up, I coiled the excess rope up, clipped my tackle
bag on and started to climb ever so slowly up. It was painfully slow, and in
all took me 20 minutes, loosing some weight and getting more SRT practice came
to mind. A very interesting trip to see a bit of the Nentforce Level, with more
scope of further exploration. |
