Our next adventure was in Cheddar.
The town was a pretty one, nestled at the base of Cheddar Gorge.
Cheddar Gorge is a limestone mountain range, where caves were discovered in the 1900's.
According to archaeologists, cheddar cheese originated here, hence the name of the town.
I love me some good cheddar!
Way to go, cheese caves!
Cheddar Gorge had two caves that you could walk through.
Those caves were where the cheddar was stored to age.
The caves maintain a steady temperature year-round--the perfect temperature to safely age cheese.
We got tickets for the tour and got to ride these open top buses up the canyon to the cave openings.
The view was awesome from the top.
I do have to say, it was butt freaking cold that day. I was on the verge of miserable. Lucky for me, Heidi threw in an extra scarf and let me take it. Who knew that scarves made such a difference?
Thank you, Heidi.
I am a scarf convert.
I also keep gloves in my camera bag.
Thank you, self.
Here is a self-portrait of Sam and I.
I include this photo for several reasons.
At that strange angle, it was a miracle that there are no visible nose hairs.
And my white strips appear to be working.
Also, it is a good shot of the gray in Sam's beard.
I love the gray.
He is maturing well. Like those rounds of cheese in the caves we are about to see.
But the most important reason you are looking at this photo, is that this is the last smile you will see on my face possibly for the rest of the trip.
My camera broke.
No lie. Right there, on the bus to the Cheddar Caves.
The lens died.
She was having a hard time zooming in and out for a couple days.
Sometimes I was stuck on zoom, until I wiggled the lens back in.
Well now, it was toast.
This was the second to last photo that I took:
See how it is all blurry and blown out?
No bueno.
And here is the last photo my lens could muster for me.
Oh sad. I was so sad!
Sam tried to tell the kids how devastating this was to me.
"You guys, it is like if you were invited onto an historic site, to metal detect, and your coil broke."
(This will not be the first time you will hear of Sam and his references to metal detecting.)
As a side note, I worry about Sam.
Gray beard aside, I feel like he has prematurely aged himself.
You decide for yourself.
Here are his hobbies:
Metal Detecting
Golf
Coin Collecting
Crossword Puzzles
Jeeping (basically driving around)
Collecting Skulls
Internets, there is nothing left for him to do when he is truly an old man!
Anyway, I guess the metal detecting explanation worked for the kids.
They avoided me and my cloud of sadness.
Every once in a while, the kids would cast me a sympathy glance.
I had the option of my telephoto lens.
Which meant that if I wanted to get a photo of a beetle on the top of the mountain, I was good.
However, to get a photo of what was right in front of me, I would have to back up into the neighboring shire to get that shot.
I had thrown in the point and shoot camera for the trip. I gave it to the kids to have them take photos from their perspective.
And also to get some photos of ME, to prove I was actually on the trip as well.
I had to commandeer the point and shoot.
Needless to say, it was full of photo gems like this:
Thanks kids.
So the the whole Cheddar Gorge experience, and the rest of our time in England would be captured with the point and shoot.
Sad.
Our first cave was Gough's Cave.
This is where they discovered The Cheddar Man.
That poor sucker was DNA tested to be over 9,000 years old. They are not sure how he died, just that he had "died violently."
I bet he was trying to steal cheese.
Here are the big rounds of cheese, just happily aging away:
The way they set the cave tours up was pretty cool.
You were given this electronic recorder thingie.
There were numbered points of interest in the cave, and when you stopped at those points, you would type in the corresponding number on the placard.
Then you would get a recorded message that would give you information about that point.
That is Sam with the recorder thingie.
If you didn't care about an area, you could just move along. All self-guided.
The kids are morons.
They discovered they could punch in random numbers on their devices and the recordings were in a foreign language.
I thought the kids were really getting something out of the cave tour, with how intent they were listening to the recordings.
Nope.
The cave was awesome!
We have a limestone cave by our house, Timpanogos Cave.
We have made the 3 mile hike to the cave and back a few times.
It is cool.
Gough's Cave makes it pale in comparison.
Cheddar Gorge is like Timp Cave on steroids!
Plus you don't have to hike to get to it, you ride a posh bus.
Well played, UK, well played.
Here are some of the more interesting things to see in the cave.
With a point and shoot.
When we finished touring the cave, we took a break for lunch.
Heidi and I had fixed sandwiches back at the cottage for us to eat.
Right outside the caves was a pretty little stream where we ate.
Mike, in the spirit of "making sure we had a full English experience" bought us some "Pork Scratchings'" to try.
He put one in his mouth and said "Oh man, these are terrible."
They were.
We asked him if it was just a bad batch.
"No," he said "they are pretty much always awful."
So unless you like to chew on teeth achingly brick-hard chunks of lard flavored bark, then skip the Pork Scratchings.
Trust me, your English "experience" will not suffer.
We stopped into one of the shops in Cheddar and got to sample some honest to goodness 18 month old aged cave cheddar.
The holy grail of cheese.
Words can't really describe the depth of flavor.
I have watched enough Food Network to tell you that it had a tangy bite, it was earthy, and creamy.
Gol-durn, it sure did put the Velveeta to shame!
It was some good cheese, Internets.
After the cheese tasting, we walked over to the museum. They had some interesting artifacts.
Like this rotating head of death.
My boys were mesmerized.
This thing was situated in mirrors so you could see the skull from every angle. And it rotated. But that eyeball?
The lone eyeball?
It followed you at every angle. Creeptastic.
It was supposed to show how everything connected, the optic nerve, and the jaw...
I was more interested in other things.
Like the cave paintings:
And these fertility goddesses:
And if you look at that uh, "thing" behind the plump little goddesses you can see a...yep.
It is what you think it is.
Those dirty Ice-Age Europeans!
After we had our fill of Cheddar, (no pun intended) we started out for Bath.
The town was a pretty one, nestled at the base of Cheddar Gorge.
Cheddar Gorge is a limestone mountain range, where caves were discovered in the 1900's.
 | ||
| Photo Credit |
According to archaeologists, cheddar cheese originated here, hence the name of the town.
I love me some good cheddar!
Way to go, cheese caves!
Cheddar Gorge had two caves that you could walk through.
Those caves were where the cheddar was stored to age.
The caves maintain a steady temperature year-round--the perfect temperature to safely age cheese.
We got tickets for the tour and got to ride these open top buses up the canyon to the cave openings.
The view was awesome from the top.
 | |||||||
| Hello, Heidi! |
Thank you, Heidi.
I am a scarf convert.
I also keep gloves in my camera bag.
Thank you, self.
I include this photo for several reasons.
At that strange angle, it was a miracle that there are no visible nose hairs.
And my white strips appear to be working.
Also, it is a good shot of the gray in Sam's beard.
I love the gray.
He is maturing well. Like those rounds of cheese in the caves we are about to see.
But the most important reason you are looking at this photo, is that this is the last smile you will see on my face possibly for the rest of the trip.
My camera broke.
No lie. Right there, on the bus to the Cheddar Caves.
The lens died.
She was having a hard time zooming in and out for a couple days.
Sometimes I was stuck on zoom, until I wiggled the lens back in.
Well now, it was toast.
This was the second to last photo that I took:
No bueno.
And here is the last photo my lens could muster for me.
Oh sad. I was so sad!
Sam tried to tell the kids how devastating this was to me.
"You guys, it is like if you were invited onto an historic site, to metal detect, and your coil broke."
(This will not be the first time you will hear of Sam and his references to metal detecting.)
As a side note, I worry about Sam.
Gray beard aside, I feel like he has prematurely aged himself.
You decide for yourself.
Here are his hobbies:
Metal Detecting
Golf
Coin Collecting
Crossword Puzzles
Jeeping (basically driving around)
Collecting Skulls
Internets, there is nothing left for him to do when he is truly an old man!
Anyway, I guess the metal detecting explanation worked for the kids.
They avoided me and my cloud of sadness.
Every once in a while, the kids would cast me a sympathy glance.
I had the option of my telephoto lens.
Which meant that if I wanted to get a photo of a beetle on the top of the mountain, I was good.
However, to get a photo of what was right in front of me, I would have to back up into the neighboring shire to get that shot.
I had thrown in the point and shoot camera for the trip. I gave it to the kids to have them take photos from their perspective.
And also to get some photos of ME, to prove I was actually on the trip as well.
I had to commandeer the point and shoot.
Needless to say, it was full of photo gems like this:
So the the whole Cheddar Gorge experience, and the rest of our time in England would be captured with the point and shoot.
Sad.
Our first cave was Gough's Cave.
This is where they discovered The Cheddar Man.
I bet he was trying to steal cheese.
Here are the big rounds of cheese, just happily aging away:
You were given this electronic recorder thingie.
There were numbered points of interest in the cave, and when you stopped at those points, you would type in the corresponding number on the placard.
Then you would get a recorded message that would give you information about that point.
If you didn't care about an area, you could just move along. All self-guided.
The kids are morons.
They discovered they could punch in random numbers on their devices and the recordings were in a foreign language.
I thought the kids were really getting something out of the cave tour, with how intent they were listening to the recordings.
Nope.
The cave was awesome!
We have a limestone cave by our house, Timpanogos Cave.
We have made the 3 mile hike to the cave and back a few times.
It is cool.
Gough's Cave makes it pale in comparison.
Cheddar Gorge is like Timp Cave on steroids!
Plus you don't have to hike to get to it, you ride a posh bus.
Well played, UK, well played.
Here are some of the more interesting things to see in the cave.
With a point and shoot.
 |
| This was a wishing pond. I threw my broken lens in it. Kidding. |
 | ||
| Ferns that grew in the pitch black. Photosynthesis? Anyone? |
Heidi and I had fixed sandwiches back at the cottage for us to eat.
Right outside the caves was a pretty little stream where we ate.
They were.
We asked him if it was just a bad batch.
"No," he said "they are pretty much always awful."
So unless you like to chew on teeth achingly brick-hard chunks of lard flavored bark, then skip the Pork Scratchings.
Trust me, your English "experience" will not suffer.
We stopped into one of the shops in Cheddar and got to sample some honest to goodness 18 month old aged cave cheddar.
The holy grail of cheese.
Words can't really describe the depth of flavor.
I have watched enough Food Network to tell you that it had a tangy bite, it was earthy, and creamy.
Gol-durn, it sure did put the Velveeta to shame!
It was some good cheese, Internets.
 |
| Mike and Heidi buying a wheel to take home. |
 |
| Behold, CHEESE! |
Like this rotating head of death.
My boys were mesmerized.
This thing was situated in mirrors so you could see the skull from every angle. And it rotated. But that eyeball?
The lone eyeball?
It followed you at every angle. Creeptastic.
It was supposed to show how everything connected, the optic nerve, and the jaw...
I was more interested in other things.
Like the cave paintings:
And these fertility goddesses:
And if you look at that uh, "thing" behind the plump little goddesses you can see a...yep.
It is what you think it is.
Those dirty Ice-Age Europeans!
After we had our fill of Cheddar, (no pun intended) we started out for Bath.
2 comments:
oh my heavens that is HUGE...
As an English girl- your comments on my country are spot on and hilarious. You learned the hard way about pork scratchings ( disgusting stuff) but I agree, Cheddar rocks. Glad someone was kind and sorted your lens too- us Brits are not all bad!
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