Down, down, deeper and down

This week, me and the fella took a trip to the mystical Wye Valley, in search of King Arthur's Cave. Fueled up with a full English breakfast, we set off on our quest in the pouring rain. Despite one missed turning (turns out Mike is just as rubbish with directions as Max), we found the car park relatively easily and set off into the damp woods. 

The cave is actually really close to the car park and took us only a few minutes to walk to. And as caves that you don't have to pay to visit go, this one ain't half bad. There are two chambers, each stretching back about 20' into a dark abyss (you'll need a torch). Arthur was nowhere to be seen; however, we had a good poke about in his absence.

Once we'd finished exploring the cave, we set off deeper into the woods in search of Bilbo Baggins Bridge, or BBB for short. The woods are very reminiscent of Middle Earth, with lots of gnarled trees, rocky outcrops of rock, and leaf-encrusted ground, where the trees have spewed their foliage upon the floor; so it's no wonder Bilbo built his bridge here, it must've reminded him of his ditch at home. 

Following the path of the river, it took a little longer than I anticipated to get to the bridge - however, get to the bridge we did! And what a marvelous bridge it is. Not for the faint-hearted among you, the bridge is only made of sticks and cardboard (it isn't really, but it didn't look much more robust than a cardboard bridge), and it wobbles considerably when you cross it - even more so if the total git you are with is deliberately making it wobble to scare you. It is, however, fun to cross and pretend you are in an Indiana Jones film. One of its endearing features is that visitors have started to add engraved padlocks to the sides of it, and we agreed that we shall return in the future with a padlock of our own.

After we left the bridge, we headed back up the incline to the motor, this time following a dirt track, rather than following the woodland path. On the return leg of our journey we spotted a small gang of deer among the trees, which was delightful. 

Once back at the motor, knackered and ever so slightly damp, we headed to Ross on Wye. After grabbing ourselves some takeaway drinks from Costa, we bimbled around the high street and came across a giant Playmobil man. Despite being an inanimate object made from plastic, he was far more interesting than Max. 

Once we'd done a five-minute lap of the high street, we headed back to the motor and I treated Mike to the delight that is Labels. As anyone who has ever visited Labels will know, it has never been a Mecca for shopping; however, things have dramatically gone down hill since I last visited. It is shit. Do not go. 

Having had more fun than we could handle by this point, we decided to call it a day and head for home. However, there was one final destination on our magical mystery tour that I'd heard talk of in local legends - an underground bunker just outside the village of Fownhope. The bunker was easy enough to find, and Mike happily descended into the darkness below to explore (I stayed above ground in case something bad lurked within the murky depths). 

In case anyone is wondering what was in the bunker, there was a couple of beds, a rusty toilet, and lots of rubbish strewn about. You could probably live down here quite easily - in fact the photos reminded me a lot of Max's house. 

And this is where our adventure drew to a close. Unsurprisingly, the rain stopped more or less as soon as we got home, but we both agreed the weather had made the walk around the woods even more enchanting, especially as it bought out all the colours of the trees. 

If you like caves and bridges, you should definitely check out King Arthur's Cave and Bilbo Baggins Bridge, but make sure you remember to take a padlock with you for the bridge (and make sure you engrave it, don't just rock up with a blank Yale lock, that would be pointless and something I would expect an idiot like Max to do). 

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