Down the Caves of Cheddar

Well this is the first real site seeing post of the new blog and it has been a busy two days so far. My mum is over from Canada and she took a bus down to Bristol on Thursday night. Friday I had to work so she walked all over Bristol seeing the sites until I finished around 5:30. Friday night we went to the opening night production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the hippodrome which was really good. As I grew up with watching the movie as a child I knew the story line pretty well.


Saturday March 10th 2006

We made our way down to Cheddar Gorge and Caves. Usually when I go there is just for a drive through the gorge but this time we got the day pass and went into the caves. There are two caves there that you can go in and both are a fair size inside. The first one we went into was Gough's Cave which was founded in 1890 was about 1/4 mile long and at the end had a very impressive chamber full of Stalactites and Stalagmites which are formed by the calcium carbonate in limestone caves. The 2nd cave was Coxe's Cave and this one was much more narrow and had a lot of low ceilings that you had to get fairly low to get through. It was also a little cheesy with the props but still great fun to walk around anyways.







We had a quick look around the museum Cheddar man and the Cannibals where we saw England’s oldest complete skeleton, a bizzare skeleton (with what looked like a raptors head and human body), and a really strange giant replica of a creepy head.



Last but not least we climbed the 274 steps up Jacobs ladder to the lookout tower for a great view over the Mendips before we walked along the top of gorge hike which was quite tough terrain and some places very step and muddy. The hike was just over 3 miles but it took you down one side of the gorge then dropped down where you crossed the road and then hiked up to the top of the other side and then back into the town and then back to Bristol for yet another great dinner with family Lyn and Richard.