Topic

Six of us formed Team Beta (aka the de-rigging team) for Juniper Gulf. With the forecast threatening rain from the afternoon we set off relatively early, were parked up and on route by ~09:30. 
The walk up was pleasant, passing by a field of erratics, some lovely limestone pavement outcrops and even some wild campers who'd spent the night up there. 
Upon reaching the prominent rocky shakehole, the water could be heard thundering below, and after a quick gear up we were dropping down into the rift base via a re-belay.
The cave was predominantly made up of deep sculpted rifts, which required horizontal traversing, some of which were bolted and some of which I wished were bolted. 
Much thrutching ensued, and as the rift deepened, widened and the handholds became slightly less existent there might even have been the  occasional request for moral support. 
"The bad step" was passed quite smoothly with some good bridging and thanks to Dave for fettling some of the more interesting rigging (-much appreciated!) and eventually we reached another pitch. 
It was impossible to see how long it was until after a bit of dangling, at which point I thought it might have been "the big pitch" but was quickly informed by Dave that it wasn't!! 
We carried on until reaching the real big pitch and regrouped as some more rigging fettling was applied. 
We decided to "bounce" the big pitch so we'd each have to opportunity to individually experience what was beyond the event-horizon, but without a shared experience of hypothermia at the cold windy bottom. 
I don't know if the pitch felt larger when going it alone but it certainly felt atmospheric with the walls thundering with water. On the North-Eastern rating scale (which I just invented) this pitch gets a rating of "geet muckle". It was quite funny seeing each victim emerge back at the top a lot more red faced than before going down! 
As each person took their turn to go down we set up a Santa's Grotto (emergency shelter) at the top of the pitch  which kept us nice and warm. (Unfortunately there were no presents and Matt's elf suit was back in the car). 
The return leg presented no real difficulties with a bit of bag passing but was considerably more drippy at the bad step which was definitely not a place to hang about at that time! 
Following a massive heave off of the top pitch it turned out to be pretty grim outside so we got back to the cars swiftly. 

Time spend underground: ~4hrs 30mins
Dave C, Ellie, Matt, Klaudia, Evil Stu and me.

(Photos courtesy of Matt)