Chooks....or should I say one chook, took a liking to the inside of MB. Every time we shooed it away, back it came. Then instead of putting the step away as we normally do before bed, it was left out and the bloody chook kept tap, tap, tapping as if to say let me in!
We did it again! Got to Scar Cave at the wrong time. Our fault because we failed to look at their website with the tour times! We knew it opened at 10 so took our time leaving the camp site and driving the 15 miles back to Ingleton We assumed wrongly, as it turned out, that the tours would leave every 30 minutes but what we hadn't realised was that it was the same way in as out. Of course, social distancing meant each tour could only start when the last one left, every 80 minutes! We arrived at 10.40, the next tour was at midday!
Roughly 30 adults and several children arrived for the same tour, so they had to split the tour into two. We, unfortunately, were in the second group, which meant another 10-minute delay before we were allowed in. I asked about the social distancing and was reassured that a convenient passing place right at the end would allow the individual tours to pass
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First a safety talk! Then the mention of the 97 steps and the very low ceilings in a couple of places which would mean stooping. One was, in fact, about 30 meters long which meant bending with no chance of relief on aching backs or knees until the end was reached, and the other, an even lower ceiling where you need to properly bend ze knees and was about 10 meters in length. Oh, eck...could this be my down falling! I did express some concern about my knee problem but was reassured when told at my height it shouldn't be a problem. Hmm, not sure if I should be pleased or peeved! Anyway now for the photos. As this was supposed to be a show cave, I expected great things. In fact, both Ian and I were a little disappointed. We seemed to walk in single file for ages along an iron grated walkway, not even permitted to stop to admire the surrounding flowstones or stalactites and mites. Most of these photos were taken on the move!
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| Underground waterfall. |
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| Battlefield Cavern was where we did have a longer stop. The top right photo is of an ancient dried mud river bed and in the cracks, calcite has been deposited giving it that paved look. |
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| The squeeze. You don't want to have big boobs here, ladies! |
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| Top, Hilda Guthrie who crawled through a tiny opening to discover what is now called Battlefield Cavern. And Bottom photo, Christopher Long who made the discovery of Scar Caves by crawling through rock for a considerable distance. |
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| Bottom two L. Devils tongue and R. Can you see the witch? |
Late lunch was had in their car park before heading off to Hawes to see another waterfall. The lateness of the afternoon meant finding a car parking space was impossible, so instead drove a couple of miles to a place called Hardraw and back into the Dales. Found yet another great place to stop, views are to die for, and the walks are pretty decent too. Oh, we finally got around to putting on our happy camper sticker.
And todays wildlife,
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