The Muddy Bottom of Thor’s Cave, 14 October 2012

Wheeling carefully through narrow lanes in valleys still sparkling in frost, we all parked up in Wetton, which was, despite sarcastic forecasts, perfectly dry.  It stayed that way all day, too, with bright sun soon warming us up as we tramped up hills, wallowed in bogs, slid back down again and, with mud-spattered derrieres aplenty, repeated the exercise several times until Thor’s Cave hove into view.  It looked like the most enormous mouse-hole ever encountered, so we did the sensible thing and looped off on a long winding detour, trekking through further scenic quagmires, and eventually chanced upon the cave once more.

The cave - beware of  the Norse deity

Climbing inside a limestone cave worn smooth by millennia of streaming rainwater whilst wearing mud-slimed soles turns out, unsurprisingly, not too offer a lot of grip.  So, having explored the cavern (uninhabited – Thor was out getting hammered), well, you guessed it, down we slithered on murky rears once more.  It was like 10,000BC mashed with an Andrex advert, but the surrounding view of the Manifold Valley was a great distraction.  A truly excellent day out, and good to have a bunch of our Lincolnshire cousins there too!