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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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
There was a little exhibition about David Lafferty, who in 1966 spent 130 days alone in Gough's Cave, breaking the world record. Although I suspect a fair section of Mastodon would probably like the idea of 130 days away from human company, before trying this you should note that he went a bit crazy towards the end, missed England's World Cup victory, and had a wife and kids and presumably expected her to just get on with taking care of the household while he sat in the dark being dripped on for four months just for the sake of saying he did it.
We then went on to the smaller Cox's Cave, which also had some amazing structures and textures in. They'd done a little sound and light exhibition in there though, with colour changing lighting and video projected onto various surfaces, and while it was all very cleverly done I have to admit I preferred the approach of letting the caves speak for themselves in Gough's Cave. Though I suppose that is also very unnatural lighting.
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And of course we both got pictures with a Mastodon to share here, although this being Mastodon I'm sure someone will pop up to say "well actually that's a mammoth".
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@afewbugs That’s a very cute calf.
@afewbugs Lovely thread, thanks 👍😀
My brain initially interpreted this photo to be the bicycle equivalent of a camper-trailer, & I immediately thought: "I want one of those."
@cavyherd you're not the only one, I didn't think when I snapped it but a lot of people initially read the photo as the tent balancing on the bike
@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 🙂
