Day 113 – Kentucky

Last night we managed to make our way to a town called Marion in Illinois before stopping, we hoped today to reach Kentucky. There was still quite a long drive to go, so it was uncertain if we’d make it in time to complete an activity today. We kept our fingers crossed in hope of getting out and about from the car. It started out as quite an overcast day, gradually warming up the closer we got. Finishing our journey through the winding fields of Missouri and entering Kentucky we accidentally added some extra miles onto our already lengthly journey. Throughout Missouri, Illinois and Kentucky there has been extensive roadwork going on and sometimes our SatNav does not have the updated maps! Despite this delay adding extra miles on, and with us having already been on the road for some 210 miles, we were in good spirits. It also turned out that we still had a smidgen of time to have a bash at the activity we had planned!

Throughout America there are many caves, and equally many activities to go climb around inside them. Until now we’ve never to really had the chance to partake in this kind of activity as many require some kind of previous caving experience and my wrist is just not in a good state to be hauling myself around. Pleasently we found that the Lost River Cave in a little town called Bowling Green, offers a unique and less strenuous way to see the cave; via boat!

Here we were, ready to go on our adventure within the seven mile cave system. After a short walk through some wooded area we met up with our guide, what we didn’t realise was that there was more to it than simply boarding a boat and exploring the cave. Much to our surprise the first part of the tour involves walking a short scenic route to the cave, continuing through the wooded area we were led to a blue hole. I didn’t realise how beautiful one of these was until I saw the bright blue water surrounded by all trees. I really enjoyed the trip back in Oregon to the Crater Lake, even though this was on a much smaller scale, it was still pretty impressive. We stopped at this spot listening vividly to our guides stories of how past generations attempt to establish the depth of the hole, this gave us both an informative and rather funny introduction to what the cave and the area was about. 

The tour then led us further along towards the caves entrance, once there we saw that the left side had a fairly large flat area canopied by the mouth of the cave. It turns out that once upon a time, around the prohibition era before air conditioning became popular, the space was used as a nightclub! The cave and the surrounding areas certainly have some interesting history, and it was time for us to board the boat! There was one more unanticipated surprise, which was the extremely low entrance. Once inside the boat we all had to lean forward so our head was resting on our knees, easier said than done for the rather tall Ben! Successfully avoiding any head injuries we continued on inside, where the cave opened up completely, quite the majestic hiding place! There are many interesting geological features inside and we sailed though, all the way around to the little dam that had been built inside to keep the water level high enough for us to be floating around on it.

Rather dark inside it was extremely hard to take pictures for you, but we had a great time, all in all it was a great way to finish a hard earned day.