Day 33 - Voyage au centre de la terre 🔦

Journey to the center of the earth 🔦  .... and new sticker day !

As recommended, today was going underground day. The Gouffre de Padirac is the huge entrance to a natural opening approximately 115 feet in diameter and 250 feet deep. It is one of the largest chasms in Europe. Surveyed and mapped  by the cave explorer Edouard Martel in 1889,  it was opened to the public in 1899.

       For centuries it was known locally as the devils hole and was often used to get rid of dead animals and the occasional body. This enormous sink hole then leads into a cave system of amazing caverns full of huge stalactites and stalagmites, waterways and underground rivers,  cut into the limestone over the ages. About 35 miles has been explored so far. The section open to the public is only just over a mile long but you travel half a mile of that by boat, 338 feet below the surface 😮. It takes you about one and a half hours to do all the route and you get a headset and audio guide before you start.

There are 2 ways down, 10 flights of stirs or the lift. Had to be the stairs.  Leaving topside at 27°C we clambered down to a refreshing 13°C which is constant throughout the whole cave system.

The rusty covered walkways at the bottom of the opening reminded me of the film Jurassic Park and the scenes from the tridactyl aviary (Rebecca) especially with all the hanging plant life and water gentle falling from cracks in the rocks all the way round.

Then, its time to go deeper and out of the sunshine 🫣. A bit slippy in places, not really the place to wear flip flops or open toed saddles.

Further down then you come to the underground river and the little boats. Propelled by a nice man or lady with a long stick, the little punts slowly move thru the crystal clear water. There is hardley any current along the half mile stretch of  river.

 Photo taking along the river is now banned for a number of reasons. Anything dropped over the side has to be retrieved. The batteries in a mobile phone, if left to corrode would probably kill the inhabitants of the river; tiny little transparent shrimp with no eyes and snails, only the size of a grain of sand, found no where else in the world.

     Flash photography is banned in the whole cave system and selfi sticks are a definite 'no no'; not only because of the risk of a phone slipping out of it and falling in the water but also dropping to one of the walkways below and hitting somebody 🥴.

    The next three photos are not mine or Jills ( hers have the txt on them) but taken from the website so you can see the boats.

It truly was (inner child coming out now) a magical experience, all very 'Harry Potter' and 'Lord of the Rings' but also thinking about those first explorers when they  crawled along and  paddled thru in their little collapsible boat to emerge into these huge open caverns with these stunning rock formations. 

    Once out of the boats you can walk along to where the river drops, flowing down a steep, smooth rock formation to continue on its way. Not open to the public, its the staging point for the series cavers and divers. You then return to climb up into the great dome chasm.

The pictures cant give you a sense of just how big the caverns are, the main chamber at the end of the boat trip being over 140 feet tall.

Of course in recent times, explores have pushed deeper and deeper into the cave systems using modern equipment, sometimes living in the cave systems for a week at a time, large organised expeditions, meticulous in making sure they don't leave anything behind to contaminate the tiny eco system. Large display boards at the boat area show some of their exploits.

Eventually all good things must come to an end and we made our way out into the huge sink hole then got the lift up to the heat of the day. Souvenir shops at the exit of course, got ourselves a sticker for the van and I really want the original account for those first cavers but unfortunately its never been translated into English 😞.

All that was left to do now was eat, cheese board of course ,  have a beer and move on, after what was, a fantastic day 🤗