Thursday 14th September

A bright sunny day today. Off to the campsite shop for bread, Pain Au Raisin, and a Pain au Chocolat.  Today we unhitched the awning and drove over to a Grotte, in this case Aven d’Orgnac.

Discovered in 1935 by a potholer named Robert de Joly.  The cave, Aven d’Orgnac, is located near Orgnac-l’Aven, in the Ardèche. It was discovered in 1935 by Robert de Joly and has been open to the public since 1939. It is, apparently, one of the most visited attractions in the area.

You can see the original entry point in the main cave, high above you. This access point at the top of the cave is where some light enters and a dummy person lowering themselves to the ground. To get to this cavern there were 270 steps built for us tourists.  Many stops later, we had clocked up 700 steps, some up but mainly down.

The cave was fabulous, I even saw a bat flying in the main cave. The guide only spoke French, for non-French speakers there are a number of short audible tracks you can download to your phone, Do not understand how the human French guide talks for 15 minutes, while the English guide on the download talks for only 2 minutes.  Thankfully listening on my noise cancelling pixel buds, I cancelled out the screaming Australian brat who had been dragged down into the cavern to the annoyance of everyone else, including his parents.

There was some spectacular stalagmites, where you could see water dripping onto them.

At the last stop we were plunged into darkness, and then listened to some music with lights illuminating different parts of the cave we had descended to.

This apparently was a small portion of the cave. Other areas are reserved for potholers, and a further section reserved for researchers.

Back on the surface, a quick lunch. A sandwich shared between the two of us. Enough for us oldies, a Magnum for me but coffees for both of us.

A rush around the museum, which went into the history of the area, the Neanderthals, and humans, and how the humans won out. Google translate with the camera works wonders.

Back to the campsite, laundry for R, and a swim for me.

Supper was duck, and a tomato, red pepper, onion side with some bread. Simple and yummy. Of course, washed down with a pink wine

The bats did not give us a proper show tonight. Very few about.