While in Kirchberg am Wechsel I also got to go on a tour of Hermannshöhle with another teacher. It’s a series of caves inside one of the mountains, with lots of stalactites and a bat colony. Usually the tours are at set times and only in German, but we got a private tour in English, which was really nice.
Bat guano is some strong-smelling stuff. The owner of the cave went to great lengths to debunk various negative ideas about bats in the tour, and he seemed pretty pleased that we already liked bats.
The owner was particularly pleased with this rock formation that looks like a turtle.The exit for the caves turned out to be halfway up the mountain (the entrance was at the foot). We then had to scramble down steep dirt paths with no fencing and a sheer fall down the mountain. It’s probably nothing to the locals or people with proper hiking equipment, but we weren’t expecting it, and it was a little terrifying.
I bet he tried to tell y'all bats don't turn into vampires at night…but we know better.
When I was a kid we used to spend evenings throwing rocks at bats…not to hit them (I mean we were good but nobody's that good)but to make them chase the rocks. The real goal was to get the bat to dive so far down after the rock that he'd swoop over somebody's head.
Cave's are beautiful. We used take a trip to these every school year… http://www.floridastateparks.org/floridacaverns/
Lots of underwater caves in North Florida…usually under crystal blue springs.
I found the coolest post card this week at an antique shop. It's a colorized photo of The Parlor in Mark Twain Cave? It's done in these pastel blues and pinks…it looks like an abstract work from the turn of the last century. I'm gonna post it later on my own slab. So cool.