Cheddar Gorge

For the early May bank holiday weekend, we rented a car and set off to explore the countryside.  Our first stop was the town of Cheddar, about 2 hrs. west of London.  Cheddar is not just famous for being the birthplace of Farmhouse Cheddar Cheese. The town is situated within a limestone gorge.  The gorge has steep near-vertical cliffs on one side and grassy slopes on the other and is listed as the second greatest natural wonder in Britain. As with most trips, C starts them by saying "this is going to be SO boring."  Luckily it didn't take her long to retract her statement.  While walking from the parking area into town we spotted quite a few rock climbers.  C and K were inspired to climb on the rocks themselves.



Our first stop was Gough's cave, full of stalagmites and stalactites.  The cave also houses Britain's oldest skeleton, Cheddar Man.


There were two 'rooms' in particular that were stunners, St. Paul's Cathedral and King Solomon's Temple.  Photos do not do the caves justice. It was really spectacular.



Father down the road was an older, smaller cave, Cox's Cave which led out to Jacob's Ladder, a 273 step climb to a lookout tower.




As we climbed up, a goat and kid jumped across the steps in front of us (they were too quick for a photo).  It was quite the climb but worth it for the views of the gorge from the tower.

To finish off, we took a quick tour up the gorge on an open-top bus.  At a couple points it was very narrow between the rocks and the bus barely made it through.



Of course, a day in Cheddar requires a sampling of cheddar cheese.  The cave ripened style was particularly delicious.  If we were going to be close to a refrigerator, we definitely would have loaded up.  Instead we just bought a bit to snack on.




We ate (spicy) burgers at a local pub for dinner and then went in search of ice cream.  Most of the shops closed early when the attractions closed (at 4:30 pm) but luckily we found one ice cream place still open.  The owner insisted he make faces on all of our cones.  The kids thought it was the most hilarious thing in the world.  Have to say, the smurf cone was quite clever!




As we were driving out of the gorge we happened upon multiple herds of wild goats coming down off the slopes to forage for their dinner.


The kids have already requested a return trip to Cheddar to explore the caves,  go rock climbing and of course, to sample some more ice cream!