Cheddar Caves and Gorge, England
As you may or may not know, I love travelling and seeing interesting sites and sights around the world, here are a few pictures of a place I have been to called Cheddar Caves and Gorge.
Cheddar is a village in Somerset, England and the gorge itself is in the Mendip Hills near it. It has a complex system of caves due to underground river. It's since become a tourist sight and has many coaches going to it yearly (mostly in the summer).
This is what Wikipedia has to say about it:
"Cheddar Gorge is a limestone gorge in the Mendip Hills, near the village of Cheddar, Somerset, England. The gorge is the site of the Cheddar show caves, where Britain's oldest complete human skeleton, Cheddar Man, estimated to be over 9,000 years old, was found in 1903. Older remains from the Upper Late Palaeolithic era (12,000–13,000 years ago) have been found. The caves, produced by the activity of an underground river, contain stalactites and stalagmites. The gorge is part of a Site of Special Scientific Interest called Cheddar Complex." (Wikipedia, 2018).
Here are some photos I have personally taken on a few different trips over the years (I used to live close to it, so I have been a few times, and still would love to go back again!)
Driving there!
These above photos are from one of the typical 'routes' into Cheddar village itself, the photos don't do it any justice. The drive through can be hair-raising as you are constantly driving through bends where the rock-face is jutting out into the road and large coaches constantly drive through. Although it's a good place to go for a simple road-trip, especially if you have something 'loud' that it echos. Sometimes, also, wild goats will be in the middle as the area is littered with them!
Cheddar Cheese
Have you wondered where cheddar cheese originates from? That's right, Cheddar! Above is a picture of a store of cheese maturing in a locked section in one of the caves. The smell was disgusting!
Caves System
There are two main caves open to the public. Gough's Cave and Cox's Caves. Both named after their discoverers.
Gough's Cave system itself goes on for miles and goes quite deep, it has a variety of rock chambers and formations, and lots of water pools which I found endlessly fascinating! You can see the two pictures above that at times you even walk under these strange pools of water.
The photo below is of inside Cox's Cave (I think it's also called Wookey Hole) it was turned into a 'multimedia walk-through experience' (as defined by Wikipedia) and along with lights and video projections throughout, there is a pretty cool dragon at the end where steam comes out of it's nose! Cool for those dragon enthusiasts like me! Unfortuantely I couldn't take many photos inside as I didn't have a decent camera back then, so the photos just came out dark (you're not allowed flash-photography due to the bat colonies living in the caves).
Outside there is also an area for families to walk around large dinosaur models.
Although this one was more aimed at the younger generation and isn't as deep and long as Gough's Cave.
Throughout the caves, there are colonies of Greater and Lesser horseshoe bats, and if I remember rightly, they do sometimes fly about and as such, you're not allowed flash photography in the caves!
It appears Wookey Hole has a lot more that is new since I last went. Trip anyone?
Below is a photo of the main entrance for the caves.
I would love to go back!
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