“It’s too steep for a quadbike,” the farmer said, as we looked up at Ben Scar Cave, knowing just how much archaeology kit we were going to need in order to carry out a 10-day excavation.
Buckets, mattocks, shovels, spades, hoes, tarpaulins, helmets, ropes, trowels, dry sieves, hand sieves, wheelbarrows, sample bags, finds bags, first aid kit, drinking water, waterproofs, measuring poles, dumpy level, GPS trimble, iPads, wifi boxes, and, of course, a decent supply of tea and biscuits.
Before we could even start the dig, we were going to have to get all this kit up to a ledge in front of Ben Scar Cave, 1000ft up in the Yorkshire Dales.
We couldn’t drive them up, we certainly couldn’t airlift them in. We were going to have to carry them.
And so our first day of preparation was spent carting it all up the steepest of slopes.
But the hill wasn’t the only thing in our way. There were also cows.
And streams…
And once we’d made it, we felt SATISFIED. Not only had we achieved a pretty mean feat, we were rewarded with a truly epic view. Plus, we were now ready to start the archaeology!
