Every Day Is Different: Monday 2nd March 2009

Wookey Hole is just out of Wells, which is England's smallest city, and home to a very large medieval cathedral. Wells has lots of character but is pretty small - the only reason it is titled as a city is because of the cathedral. We stopped here on the way home for a quick look around.

One of the first things we saw in Wells was this Barber Shop... good way to get attention I guess!

Wells seemed a little bit.... well, what will we say.... boganville like!!! There seemed to be quite a few weirdos around (the most I have seen here), but we won't hold that against Wells now will we - it was just an observation!!

Just as I had read, Wells Cathedral was magnificent, mainly because of it's size and history I thought. It was built in stages between 1180 and 1508.

The inside was a little strange to me, glorious in lots of ways and the structure is obviously amazing but I didn't really find it uplifting, maybe because it's a grave site too, and some of the headstones were a little weird, it was really worth seeing but let's just say it left me thinking!

Check out the organ pipes. They hold concerts here quite regularly and are celebrating 1100 years of Music here this year.

Wells Cathedral really is huge but is only the centrepiece of a cluster of ecclesiastical buildings dating back to the Middle Ages and beyond. I liked Wells, and the way it has been kept in it's original form. It's a small town and has been kept that way.

Mondays adventures took us to Wookey Hole, yes I took a photo of the sign so that you would believe me!! Wookey Hole is famous for its caves, which has the River Axe running through it.

It's also a bit of an amusement park with Dinosaur Valley, The Wookey Fairy Garden, Wookey Hole Pier, Wookey Bears, Mini Golf, Paper Making and a lot more! Because we are currently visiting places in the 'off season' we are finding they never have all their attractions open and there aren't usually that many people around - which has its positives but also its negatives. Wookey Hole was really quite interesting and we enjoyed our day and learnt quite a few things along the way!

It was too cold for ice cream but the girls enjoyed looking at this one...

First up was our cave tour, where we heard the legend of the Witch of Wookey who was turned to stone many years ago.... which scared the life out of Leilani.... but she recovered!!! The caves were really quite fascinating and the history of them even more so. The caves were inhabited by men and women who were in the valley hunting bears and rhinoceros' over 50,000 years ago.

We didn't take many photos while in the caves because the light wasn't very good, but here you can see the River Axe, which houses clean, pure water.

There has been at least one Mill at Wookey Hole for centuries, in 1610 it was a papermill, which by the 20th century was the largest rag made paper mill in Europe. The rag boiler is silent now and the days when 35,000 sheets of paper were turned out every week are gone. Paper is still made here though, just the rags have gone - cotton now comes in bales straight from the cotton fields of the United States. But the same machinery and processes remain, and the skill of the paper-makers. We were shown how to make paper by hand and Leilani was very amused when the man told us one of the ingredients is Elephant poo!!!

Leilani made it through the caves by thinking about the Fairy Garden on the other side!!! We were lucky to see some sun for a few minutes and it looked beautiful with the glass crystals hanging in this tree reflecting all over the garden. It was fun finding the hidden fairies and imagining what was behind the secret fairy doors!!

Leilani & Emily were both very excited to see Grandad hiding in one of the caves....

Entering Dinosaur Valley was fun, especially because they made some ferocious noises!! The girls were pretty brave though and Emily was a crack up saying "They just pretend Lani"' over and over!!! All the while giving them a death stare out the corner of one eye!!

I was thrilled to see a Woolly Mammoth here, and even more to read that they are the most famous from the Pleistocene time! I always knew my heritage was good!!

This was Leilani's favourite Dino because she said he was friendly because he had a smile!!

Back inside and there were a whole range of things to see and do (most were closed though - lol!! We figured that weekends are probably the best time to come to places like this). But we enjoyed it nonetheless, and experienced what kept our ancestors entertained only a hundred years ago... how times have changed! We really should have got a photo of the Old Penny Arcade... there were hundreds of these old machines and they had it set out just as I imagine it would have been not that long ago. The Magical Mirror Maze was a great hit too, and we all know how much Lani loves her little rides....

This was the Mini Golf area which we didn't venture into, but it looked pretty cool!

They had this big bear shop here too, which again was closed but they had lots of cute teddies on display in the gift shop and while outside the Wookey Bears shop I learnt about the legend of the Teddy Bear.... which sounded quite familiar, but I had totally forgotten!! If you don't know the story of the Teddy bear... let me know and I'll fill in you - or just google it and you will probably find the answer there too!!! It's very cool!!!

Emily got to buy a new 'Lambie' from the gift shop, and Lani picked out a 'Bush Baby' (quite a strange, but cute lookin' thing) but I can't find a photo of them so I will have to post that later!!

And that was Wookey Hole.... well a bit of it anyway!