End of the Trip - Oxford

Sorry for my lack of blogging over the last week. I have a friend who was working for the State Department in Africa and started to have problems with an eye. Within a few days he was flown to London where he had immediate eye surgery. As a result, he has had to lay on his side for a week. Thus, I spent a lot of time visiting him in the hospital (amazing private room for 3 days) and doing small things for him, like reading him the newspaper and going grocery shopping since he could not leave his apartment. He is now upright and feeling much better.

I also started my job search so I have very little to blog about since I spend most of my days looking at a computer!

Now, where were we...............

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Since it was raining on Sunday, we decided to do something low key before we left the Peak District. Someone in our party had read that there was a cave nearby that had a river in it that you could boat through. As we were trying to get out the door and check out of the cottage, no one really went back to read the details about the cave.

We found our way to the cave and since Rica was feeling much better, she was geared up for the adventure.

After going down some steep slippery steps, we came to a small boat, where we all got in.

Let's just say we should have done some more reading! What we did not know was....................this was not a "natural" cave. We soon found out we were floating through a lead mine! Can we say false advertisement! Here is a description I found on the internet of the "cave."

"Speedwell is unique in that visitors can travel through the caves by boat. In places the roof of the caves are so low that in the past, guides would propel the boat forward by using their feet on the roof of the passage! The boat journey brings you to the Bottomless Pit, a huge underground lake and chamber that has been compared to a subterranean cathedral."

This description is much more spectacular then the actual cave. After loading into the boat, we floated for about 7 minutes down a narrow tunnel that was used by the miners. During this exciting trip where we saw nothing except moths (they actually had a small box of moths that our guide pointed out), Rica became very scared and then proceeded to cry (children and dark places don't go well together).

At the end of our boat journey, we off loaded into a large cavern that had a small "lake" at the bottom. As it was not a natural cave, we really did not have much to look at. There, we waited for about 10 minutes until the boat came back to pick us up. The adventure was rather comical and the best part of the entire trip was our guide. He was in his early 20's, goth attire, and pretty much made fun of the pathetic tour we were all on. There were lots of laughs. Here is Keena trying to calm Rica down as she was not impressed either.

Outside the cave was a little more exciting. There was a bike race going on through the small hills.

We spent the rest of the day traveling back to Oxford where we dropped off Anna at the train station and explored Oxford a little. We mostly went on a 2 hour walk around the city.

We walked along a nice river that had people crewing in it.

We spent the evening at a local pub before heading back to Anders for our last night.

The next day we drove to the airport where Keena and Grigo set off for Romania. Overall, it was a great trip! I can't wait to see more of the UK!