We are celebrating a brief interruption of the drought and the return of the rains in true British fashion by going camping in it, but I thought Mastodon might appreciate how someone else traveled to the campsite
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@afewbugs I was planning to go camping and hillwalking on Skye. Without a car. The forecast of heavy rain and wind for the whole time I was planning to be there forever me to re-evaluate my life choices...
@afewbugs you've inspired me. I'm now off to Cheddar Gorge for the afternoon 🙂
I already knew I liked this campsite a lot, but this sign directing people to the washing up area has just cemented it
I'm back now and trying to raise my blood caffeine levels to the minimum necessary for work to occur, so it's time for What I Did On My Holidays By Jules Age 44 And 7/12ths. We went to #CheddarGorge and stayed at Petruth Paddocks on the #StrawberryLine, a lovely campsite that seems to have actually been built by people who go camping. There are phone charging lockers! Ample hooks on the shower wall to hang up both your muddy clothes and your clean ones and a baffle to stop both from getting soaked by the shower! Washing machines! A shop that sells batteries and stove gas cannisters! Highly recommended https://www.petruthpaddocks.co.uk/
@afewbugs We camped there a few years back and it was lovely then too. I seem to remember the staff were great and the facilities a bit chaotic, but that was better than places we’ve stayed with good facilities staffed by miserable gits. It was nice being able to walk into Cheddar.
@afewbugs or who actually listen to suggestions from campers
@afewbugs my friend and I rate campsites by how many hooks they have in showers. Such a little thing but it makes all the difference to the experience.
My new favourite "the people who run this truly understand" thing is shelves/shower caddies at drinking water taps for people who fill up individual bottles rather than tanks. I hate having to juggle bottles or put them on the floor.
#CheddarGorge is a very craggy and beautiful limestone gorge that was formed during the ice age 1.2 million years ago and now contains several dramatic caves open to tourists and a museum of prehistory, as well as assorted cafes, gift shops selling plush prehistoric fauna, ice cream concessions, crazy golf courses and a shop selling Christmas decorations all year round for no apparent reason.
@afewbugs There's an excellent cider and cheese shop in Cheddar, just at the bottom of the gorge. I could spend a lot of money in there.
@afewbugs The cheese shop is nice though. And so is the cave-aged cheese.
The first cave we visited was Gough's Cave, which was first opened as a tourist concession in Victorian times by Richard Gough, the son in law and eventual competitor with the owner of Cox's cave further down the valley. He was only able to do so once the old woman who lived in the front of the cave died as she refused to sell it to him, as she made a good living there selling bottles of health giving mineral water from springs in the cave or, in dry years, from a nearby stream. Learning that "obstructive cave crone scamming the gullible" can be a viable career path has led me to reevaluate many of my major life decisions.
Almost immediately on the left as you enter #GoughsCave is the site where #CheddarMan was discovered, not a cheese-powered superhero but the earliest known complete human skeleton found to date in the British Isles. He died around 10,000 years ago, possibly in situ or was possibly buried here. Many other bone fragments and stone tools have also been discovered in the cave.
This is not the original skeleton, which is preserved in London's natural history museum, but a replica which one of the guides told us was called Bob by the staff as when the cave floods his skull sometimes comes off and bobs about.
The guide incidentally was called Dan, was absolutely lovely, and really wants Cheddar Gorge to start running DnD games in the cave but the management isn't going for it. I think that would be an amazing idea and every nerd I know would be beating a path to their, uh, cavemouth. I'd be surprised if anyone following me is part of Longleat Management, but I've seen weirder things happen on here so if you are please make this happen
Cheddar Man's remains were well enough preserved for his DNA to be sequenced, which very pleasingly upset the section of the population who use "woke" as an insult when it revealed that one of the earliest studiable inhabitants of the UK had dark skin.
(The waxwork model of him being buried in the museum of prehistory was made before this was known by the way, so it has pale skin and bears an unsettling resemblance to Matt Berry)
The caves themselves were incredible, excavated from the limestone rock by the actions of water over a timescale that I find it very hard to get my head around. The cave's human inhabitants only seem to have lived, or at least only left archaeological evidence, as far as what's been termed the Daylight Zone, the area by the cave entrance that sunlight can reach. And honestly I can see why, the smoothed limestone can look unsettlingly organic and the place is very eerie even by artificial light with lots of galleries of unknown depths branching off at all angles and holes in which all manner of imagined dangers could be lurking.
Some of the geological features look, ahem, extremely organic
The caves are also used to age traditional Cheddar cheese, which I find fascinating because while they are a steady 11 degrees year round in every other way they wouldn't have seemed like a particularly healthy food storage environment to me. It's extremely damp, home to a population of greater horseshoe bats, and there was something in the air that made both me and Charlie have sneezing fits at periodic intervals.
The deeper you go into the cave the more otherworldly it looks. I truly can't wrap my head around how long it takes structures like this to form, depositing a few millimetres of calcite every thousand years quietly alone in the dark.
I was waiting for a hand to emerge from this reflecting pool and offer me an enchanted sword. Maybe next time.
JRR Tolkien visited Gough's Cave on his honeymoon, and it's thought that it was the inspiration for Helm's Deep and Golem's cave, and that this formation may have inspired the White Tree of Gondor
@afewbugs A wild trandem appears?
@afewbugs yes but rain on tent sounds which are wonderful.
@afewbugs I do appreciate it. Hope you have a good time camping!
@afewbugs I do like a tandem. Enjoy the camping.
![Frans Super 🇺🇦🇵🇸🍋[FCKPVV]](https://media.mstdn.social/accounts/avatars/109/262/368/122/349/251/original/2fabef487ac5ca1d.jpg "Frans Super 🇺🇦🇵🇸🍋[FCKPVV]")
@afewbugs Looks like the tent is on the rear bike rack. Very appropriate! 😅
@afewbugs
From the thumbnail image I thought that was a covered cat carrier on the back of that tandem!
@Maker_of_Things I mean I have no evidence that the people in that tent _aren't_ furries
