Poulnagollum to Poulelva

We had arranged with Phil Walker last nigh to pick him up at Noon for a trip in Poulnagollum and after collecting him, we set off to find the stile behind the electricity pole leading to the large open pot of Poulelva.
Leaving my car parked on the verge up the road, Keith, Karen, Phil and I walked the short distance to Poulelva and Keith, who had changed into caving gear, tied an SRT rope to the P bolts near the lip of the shaft, in a “Y” hang and then set up the rebelay a few metres down.
Having rigged the rope, we set off back to the car to find Boyd walking towards us. He had left Jenny in their van and confirmed that Simon and Shari were also coming but the three of them planned on descending Poulelva and exiting via Poulnagollum, so we had and exchanged trip set up.
Keith removed his wellies and oversuit and we all got back into my car and drove the few hundred metres further up the road to park at the small parking place by Pollnagollum where we found Simon and Shari already waiting.
Having changed into caving gear we crossed the drystone wall using the stile made of rock slabs and then Keith tied off a 15 metre rope which we would use as an aid to descend into the pot. As the rock was damp and slippery, we all chose to simply abseil in using Italian Hitches or descenders.
Soon we were on our way at around 13:15 making rapid progress in the tall and meandering passages which were usually at least a meters wide if not much wider passing a waterfall with much fluted rock en route.
We reached the junction of the Main Stream with a tributary and took a diversion to the left finding the floor quite slippery with some sort of organic material which was washed in by the stream.
We passed a small waterfall and after a few places blocked by large blocks of limestone where we had to crawl on one side or the other in the shallow stream, we soon heard the thundering of a larger waterfall ahead.
We crossed the pool at the foot of the waterfall getting a bit wet in the process as we slid on the slippery rock and had a look at the passage which goes off beyond which is a bit dirtier but wasn't the way we wanted to go.
So, we returned back along the tributary to the junction with the Main Streamway and then onwards following the Main Streamway beyond.
Soon we reached Boyd, Simon and Shari with Simon taking photos. This was at the section where the roof was starting to lower and we stopped for a while to have a Mars Bar or whatever.
Afterwards we continued on with wide but stooping passages until we eventually arrived at a hands and knees passage going off to the right with “PE” and an arrow which was pointing down this passage.
The cave was now very different with sections of hands and knees crawling, a couple of awkward obstructions and a short traverse requiring a couple of steps across. There was also a short flat-out section where the leg-loop of my harness got caught on a knobbly bit on the floor, but I soon freed it. There was also a section of meandering passage much smaller than the main part of the cave.
Soon, following Karen who never went wrong once, we were at the final low section of flat-out crawling to arrive by the waterfall in Poulelva pot.
We all prusiked up the rope we had rigged earlier at around 15:30, so we had only been underground for about two hours.