P8

Another breakfast in a quieter café at Monyash and we were off to first pay a visit to Hitch 'n' Hike near Bamford for the others to buy some bits of caving gear.
Moving on afterwards we arrived at the usual layby parking place for P8, which was nearly empty yesterday, to find it completely full!
So we parked by the cattle grid outside the farm across the road and left our £2 trespass fees by the back door as there was no answer when I knocked at the door.
After getting changed we headed across several fields to arrive to the entrance to P8 and again found water levels low.
We were soon down Idiot's Leap and after passing this short drop arrived at the First Pitch. Keith had brought enough ropes to rig both the normal route plus also the alternative higher route at this pitch. Karen wanted to rig and descend the usual lower option, while Keith and Alice were going to do the short climb up a rifty section and drop down the longer alternative pitch.
I like this longer alternative pitch and began to climb up to follow the other two but found ti too painful on my left leg so I clambered back down and followed Karen down the normal route which was already rigged with another party's rope so Karen had rigged our rope to avoid them getting tangled.
We were soon all reunited in the nice chamber below the first pitch and then climbed up to the higher level passage leading towards the alternative second pitch. We soon heard voices and found a small group of cavers with ropes rigged at the 'Bold Step' by the junction with Stalactite Passage.
We found Brian Potts was among them (so that was Brian's car in the layby, as we thought we recognised it)! It turned out that this was a small group being instructed by Nigel Atkins who we said “Hello” to and had a laugh with.
We continued past the group and Keith rigged the alternative second pitch as we heard the other laughing and joking and enjoying themselves greatly.
We made our way down to the downstream sump finding it very low, the lowest we had seen for a long time.
Next stop was the upstream sump which unsurprisingly was very low and quite a long way down its vertical passage.
Keith and Alice elected to head back towards the second pitch by following the low tube section of passage from near here while Karen and I returned by the same route we had followed earlier on the way in.
We were all soon again at the second pitch and after replacing our SRT kit which we had taken off, we prusiked up and passed Nigel and the others and headed back towards the entrance.
We didn't hang around by the entrance as there were horse files around, and one managed to bite Keith on the lip!