Some people might say my life's in a rut

May 10th; Day 11

It was cooler today, our last full day on the Island and we decided to go and visit the local(ish) caves at Horne Lake. We were told that we needed to leave the Highway at Exit 75, and as we got on at Exit 60 we were prepared for a long drive. However it turned out to be the next junction; it was only at this point we realised that the exits are numbered according to how many kilometres they are from the start. This must be a cause for great confusion for Canadians visiting the UK!

The cave tour was great! There was only Ned and me and the two guides, Miles (from Alberta) and Sean (or Wayne - why is it I always get those names muddled?) from Australia. When they came out to meet us you could see their spirits sinking at the prospect of taking a middle-aged couple who'd probably be real drips. They soon changed their minds when, on the steep hike up to the cave entrance Ned and I set a brisk pace and the boys got out of breath trying to keep up; we were quietly amused.

It wasn't a cave tour like Wookey Hole, with walkways and ropes and atmospheric lighting. This involved helmets and headtorches and scrambling ("Make sure you always maintain three points of contact and don't touch the calcite"). We were very proud to uphold the honour of the Empire and didn't slip or get claustrophobic or scared in the dark!

Many of the stalagmites and stalactites are given names, some being more fanciful than others. The 'howling wolf' was okay at the right angle as was the 'bacon slices'. There was one unnamed one that reminded me very much of Nursey (from Blackadder)'s fancy-dress cow outfit.

The 'Buddha' formation (if you look carefully)





Miles and Sean/Wayne were very impressed and told us that we'd have been fine on the longer tour that involves a lot more squeezing, but I'm not sure they were right!

Something that struck us as being rather odd. They do several types of tour of the cave systems; the 'family' one that we did, the 'Wet & Wild Adventure', the 'High Adventure' and 'Extreme Rappel' and, bizarrely, night caving. Bearing in mind that it's pitch dark in the caves even in the middle of the day I really can't see the point of going at night.