Devon Holiday - Day 2 - (Caves and Cobwebs)

So, the weather looking pants (rain hitting the tent pretty hard overnight) we opted for some under-cover (well, as far as possible) activities - Kents Cavern was top of the list for the local attractions (the other blatantly indoor nearby attraction - Sorely Tunnel - upon investigation turned out to be a partially flooded, partially collapsed empty tunnel with attached kiddies play area) -

- Anyway, Kents Cavern is a (roughly) 2 million year old series of passages and chambers created by water erosion (at the time, of course it was somewhere rather different on the globe, but plate tectonics shifted it to Devon where hundreds of bears, hyenas and at least one famale human being (who was eaten by one of the other two types of resident) sought shelter in later years)...it was then, at some stage, largely filled with mud...

Many years later it seems that some Romans crept in, because at the foot of this striking calcite deposit (nicknamed "The Face" for fairly obvious reasons) archeologists found several piles of carefully stacked sestercii...(I think I probably would have taken one look at it in the flickering candle light and fled in terror rather than paying it some money, but anyway)...

Had a good chance to try out some low light settings on the camera, caught this shot (above) of falling drips forming a stalagmite (click it to zoom in) which I was quite pleased with -

- and this one of the "Wedding Cake" -

- and this is a 50,000 year old stalagmite (protected behind the glass shields on the right), to put it in context (as it only grows by the thickness of a human hair every year), this deposit is 5 times older than the English Channel... ;)

Anyway, back out into the rain for the quick dash to "Bygones" which is in a converted cinema, it's actually very impressive, the owners have mocked up a complete Victorian high street -

- complete with sweet shop, blacksmiths, bakery etc. -

- they also have some rather interesting curios from days gone by (in this case thank goodness!), we stopped for a cup of tea in the little cafe and then headed back to the camp site (via Totnes Morrisons to buy some steak for tea)...

Later on, after a few beers I went over to the ablusions and was rather suprised to find a queue of young lads waiting for the toilet (or so I thought), when (getting a little desperate) I impatiently muttered "What are they doing in there?", it quickly became apparent that this queue was not for the toilet at all, but for the use of the socket by the sinks to charge mobile phones/ipods/PSPs....!

There's a feature of modern life for you... ;)