Bonnechere caves 21st Aug

A quiet day today. We got up and went to have breakfast in the restaurant attached to our motel. It was supposedly famous for schnitzel, so we had to try a schnitzel breakfast and a normal fry-up breakfast between the 3 of us. They were enormous; each had 2 eggs, ham, 2 rounds of toast and sauteed chips, and then the schnitzel had schnitzel (of course, which is pork tenderloin, tenderized, then covered in breadcrumbs and spices, and fried) and baked beans. The other breakfast had 2 sausages and bacon. We stuffed ourselves but could not finish.
We drove for 3/4 hour to the Bonnechere caves near Eganville and wandered along the river that had formed the caves for about 15 mins waiting for our tour time. John took us and another 10 or so visitors through the history of the site; they had an amazing fossil collection from way before the dinosaur period when there were no land animals yet and that area was under the sea. Then we went down into the caves (which are very young in geological terms) formed after the end of the last ice age about 11,000 years ago. The stalactites were small (the largest about 15cm) and the only stalagmites were ones that had started in 1965 when the person who found the caves pumped out the water that was flowing through and built some dams to keep it out. They were about 2mm high! The story of the caves discovery was a great one. In the mid 1800s when the river was mapped it had been noted that some water from the river went into a cave and no exit of water was noticeable but nobody had done any further investigating. In the 1950s a local man, Tom, found a copy of the map and decided to investigate. He didn't tell anyone where he was going but he found a sinkhole (where a cave roof has collapsed) and lowered himself down on a rope. He couldn't get very far because if was so dark and the water was so high but he decided to come back the next day to explore further. This time (again not telling anyone where he was going) Tom brought a small dingy, a flashlight and a camera (which he had borrowed from a neighbour). He tied the rope to a tree and round his waist and down he went. Tom sat in the half inflated dingy (the tunnels were to tight to allow him to inflate it fully) and he let himself drift down a tunnel full of small brown bats; he threw glass flash canisters against the walls to give himself light to take photos. Suddenly the water became a violent twisting whirlpool and he could see that there was no further head room above the water, the water and he in his little dingy was being sucked down. He had to grab hold of something to stop himself being sucked under, flashlight or camera had to be sacrificed.... the flashlight went as the camera was not his.... and he grabbed onto a stalactite. Tom then had to drag himself in the pitch black up stream, through the now very angry Little brown bats, to the sinkhole to escape.
We were treated to the darkness he had experienced when John turned out the lights. You couldn't see your own hand in front of your face.
After his escape Tom decided to try to empty the caves of water and he built dams to prevent most of the water entering and set up pumps to get rid of the water. He pumped for days and days but the water level didn't seem to be going down. Eventually he called in some divers to try to find the source of the leaks. Down they went and they found that the pump piping had been cut clean through with huge teeth marks.... a cave monster? ... no ... just a pair of beavers who had made their lodge inside the cave and who obviously objected to the drainage attempts. The piping; with teeth marks; is now a proud exhibit in the little shop attached to the site!
Our adventure over, we started our journey back to Peterborough. We are going to take up the Wilsons' kind offer of the use of their house whilst they are in the UK to have a few lazy days with home cooking and a few lie ins!
Of course the dogs were mighty pleased to see us and we went for a good walk before chicken stew and rice, shower and bed. (Lulu is a very determined little madam, she had to be removed from the bed several times before she realised that she was not going to get a moments peace!)