Cheddar Caves and town

This a follow on from my last blog where I was talking about the Cheddar Gorge walk. This time I take off from where I left off on that blog.

After reaching the bottom of the walk we were now just down from the caves. But after the walk we had run out of water and were feeling a little hungry. We decided for this walk we wouldn't bother taking the bag with our stuff in it as we felt it wasn't that long and the car was close by. So we headed back to the car and sat by the boot just eating some sandwiches and bits before we headed back down to the caves.

The cave entrance was only a few hundred yards down the road under neath a Costa coffee shop. There was no queue so we showed our online ticket to the guy at the desk and made our way in. We could see in front of us was a large cave opening and was well lit but also you could see it was wet and started to head down hill a bit. But before we reached the entrance a guy stopped us on our right in what was like a hut and said about taking some audio guides with us. These looked like large TV remote controllers. All you had to do was every time you reached a point that had a number on it, you put that in and press play and it would tell you all about the place you where standing in.

So now we headed into the cave and my daughter was very happy with the audio guide, as soon as we just got through the entrance there was a number straight away and it was telling us all about the skeleton that was found in the cave and how it is the oldest found in the whole of the United Kingdom. The skeleton that was there was a fake as it was locked in the museum.

So after that it was a case of following the path that leads you round and even though it was near enough the same path in and out you just had to keep to the left hand side. As we walked round we listened to the audio guide and also tried to take photo's. Have to say at this point my photos came out really bad due to me having a new camera and thinking i had the right setting, I found I was wrong and were really blurry which was a shame. First we came across a massive cage of cheddar cheese rolled up into barrel shapes. These where kept in here as for one it is the land of the cheddar cheese and also because this the best and cheapest way of storing it. As the caves hold a constant temperature no matter the weather and it is perfect for the cheese and also saves on some sort of large refrigeration unit.

The path then lead to the left and split into two for a short while and we would follow the other on the way out. Now it was just a case of seeing the walls of the caves and all the different forms of calcite in pools of water and holes in walls that was truly beautiful.

We were expecting to walk a around about a mile and a half as when we read on the information on there online site they boosted how it was three miles long. We found this not to be the case at all and reached the end rather quickly. Now I think in there writing they were talking about the caving excursions you can go on that takes you deeper but they clearly make out on the site it for everyone which is a bit misleading.

But in any case we turned round and started to come down the way we came for a short way before turning left and heading down some man made steps. Just before that though we did see what was called the frozen river which did look really crazy.

Now we were on our way back and along the way we seen more of the same kind of thing but seen a set up of how people who first found the cave went about exploring it. Once back at the start again we put our audio guide into a trolley and headed out. It was a nice to see but like I said before it was a lot shorter visit than we had planned.

We headed out now and headed down to another cave system that was about hundred yards down the road. This was called Dream-hunters. The idea behind this was it would be a walk through a cave but with a cinematic experience as well. The walk through the caves was nice. The cinematic experience on the other hand needs a bit of work as for one the amount of people they aloud in at one time considering how narrow the cave system was and made it very hard for people to see and some could not get into each cave to watch things. Another problem was there was a running man that was meant to tell you that the film from that part of the cave had finished and to move onto the next. Trouble is the other one started straight away and by time you got there you missed a fair bit and by the end you didn't know what was going on. My daughter though didn't mind it as she just liked all the things being beamed onto the cave walls.

After this we came out at where we went on the walk at Jacobs ladder. We came out of here and crossed the road to walk back to the car but to also see all the shops and and bits on the other side before we went. Some of the shops were really good in the things that they sold. Was no really cheap stuff or anything but great stuff designed by locals. We did end up buying a couple of bits.

So on way back to car we sore more stuff in shops and also stopped at there little museum. This was just a little walk through one of how the caves were found. The instruments that the people back then use to use to cook and hunt with back then who did live in the caves. This was quite interesting but like the caves was a short visit.

After this we made the short way back to the car and started to head home. In the end we spent around five and a half hours there and had a nice time.