Garden Path, Lathkill Dale, Derbyshire

This was a caving trip we had been wanting to do for some time as the Garden Path entrance to the Lathkill Cave system has special entrance requirements and we had to arrange a visit. In the morning, Karen, Keith and I met Boyd, Phil Walker, Jason Blackwell, Chris Jackson, Jess Eades and Dan Leyden. Jess and Dan weren't on the list of six for the trip (plus a leader, who was Boyd) and were planning to have a trip down the nearby Lathkill Cave Top Entrance. The trip was arranged to take photos and also to fill in a cave conservation form.
Keith, Karen and I picked up some of our gear left at the cottage from yesterday the headed for the Old Smith Cafe in Monyash for breakfast. Once that was completed we drove the short distance along the road to park at the head of Lathkill Dale and started to get changed into our caving gear. I found that I had left my wetsuit socks back in the drying room at the cottage and was luckily able to contact Phil Walker on his mobile phone as he was about to leave the cottage and asked him to bring them with him. Later I discovered I had also forgotten my gloves! Anyway, this wasn't so much of a problem and once we were ready, we headed down the Dale and then up along the diagonal path leading upwards from the Dale which leads you to both entrances. Boyd, Karen, Keith and I (with Keith again rigging) headed down the Garden Path entrance (which required no spanner but did have two padlocks which used the same key). Jason, Chris, Phil planned to descend the Top Entrance with Jess and Dan and then three of them would swap over and have a trip down the Garden Path.
We arrived in the large chamber below after passing three rebelays and two deviations with the last rebelay having a handy wooden platform spanning the rift as it broke into the larger chamber below.
Karen followed Keith down and asked me to hang around at the chamber's roof level while she took some photos. Then after I reached the floor of the chamber, Karen, at my suggestion, set her camera to "Night Shot" and after setting it on a rock and starting the self-timer, we shone our lights around the chamber using a technique called "light -painting".
Once Boyd had descended, we removed our SRT kit and crawled through a low, short section to the top of a short fixed iron ladder into a small chamber and the up another short ladder and another short, low crawl to the top of a third longer ladder which dropped us into yet another chamber with quite a lot of flowstone which was muddy, a large pile of boulders at one end and at the other a muddy floor. We took care not to tread on this floor as this was of scientific interest. After another look around the large chamber, Keith headed back up the rope followed by Karen and myself with Boyd bringing up the rear. We met the others on the surface and Jason, Phil and Chris, who made up the remaining three of our party of six, headed down the Garden Path using our rope which they were to de-rig. Meanwhile Keith, Boyd and myself headed for Top Entrance so that Keith could de-rig that. Jess and Dan sat on the surface in the sun while Karen headed back to the car to get changed. Once we had Top Entrance de-rigged, Karen, Keith, myself and Jess returned to the Monyash Cafe for ice creams, Dan had a look at the entrance of Cascade Cavern behind the public toilets at the head of Lathkill Dale and Boyd waited around for the others.