Guilty pleasures - visiting showcaves when abroad....

[Pitlamp]

Out of interest, what's the purpose of the pendulum? It the cave in one of the tectonically active parts of Italy?

 

[andybrooks]

I think the primary function is to measure crustal rotations, as opposed to translations which might be picked up by more conventional seismographs. Apparently it is very sensitive, able to resolve earth tides and responsive to Chilean earthquakes. Other readers may be better informed . . .

 

[Pitlamp]

Thanks - that's interesting. I remember seeing something similar, although on a much smaller scale, at Jodrell Bank.

 

[Pegasus]

Thanks for the above posts. Am going to hunt out my photos from Cango Caves, South Africa - will be great to relive the memory.

Have also put visiting Postonja high on the to do list, sounds fab.

 

[Mrs Trellis]

Postojna and the Lake Bled area used to be very popular in the old Yugoslavia days but it seems to have been overtaken now as a tourist desination by Montenegro and north Croatia. (Dubrovnik was always popular).

The Italian/Slovenian area is the origin of the term "Karst".

 

[Pegasus]

Kotor, Montenegro. We walked up to the fortress/castle above the town in the baking heat - I earnt that ice cream!

 

[Pegasus]

Tim and I are just back from a week in Barbados, lucky us.

We had planned to visit two showcaves - Harrisons and Animal Flower.

Animal Flower was certainly different. It's named after the anemones which you can see in the pools. A sea cave, perched up on the cliffs and looking out onto the huge waves of the Atlantic. The bigger waves crash into the cave and you can swim in the larger pool. I loved it as never experienced anything quite like it before and the pool was a lot of fun 😁

Showcave on the left

Huge waves - great to watch. Glad to be on dry land and not out there 😳

As for Harrisons cave - we didn't prebook, just turned up. In order to get in they wanted to know, name, e-mail, tel number, DOB, hotel name, room number (!!). What the heck for?? We stopped there before they wanted inside leg measurements. It was going to take blummin ages to book in and they were after far too much data so we thought 'sod it' and left. Reasons given for all the mutterings were, yes you've guessed it - insurance.