ARMCHAIR CAVE SPOTTINGI’m sure that most avid devotees of the sport which we all love and usually involves descending into those dark places beneath the earth, have at one time or another spent many hours trudging around the ‘surface’ searching for an entrance to our underworldly destination.This searching invariably takes place in the most horrid weather, consisting of cold, rain, snow, hail, sleet, wind or all of the above simultaneously.Even worse it involves wearing a plastic suit over a fleece suit to clamber up impossibly steep hillsides on a baking hot sunny day (maybe not this year), only to find that someone / thing has moved the entrance which was there only the week before.The next stage is when you decide to do a recee and find the entrance while attired in suitable walking gear, rucksack complete with picnic and most importantly map, compass and guide book.This kind of outing is usually combined with taking a non – caving partner (or other unsuspecting hiker & provider of sarnies & cakes) on a ‘nice walk’ and then low and behold just happen to be in the vicinity of a cave which you could look for ‘whilst there by complete co-incidence’.When all possible walking companions have become disillusioned by your outings which involve clambering around shake holes for an hour or three, then you can end up a lonesome cave spotter (Ahhhhh, I hear the audience say – how sad, or was that what a sad git).Cave spotting is incidentally much harder than it sounds, unlike train spotting where if you stand beside the rail tracks the locomotives come past at regular intervals, caves and pot holes can be elusive creatures indeed.You only have to read the guide books which mention pots and shafts ‘now lost’!Sounds impossible, but they just disappear.Well now we have GOOGLE, you never have to leave your armchair to go cave spotting on “Goole Earth”.No more exposure to the elements, fresh air or exercise just a click on a mouse and you fly there as if by magic.A few tips to save you getting R.S.I. in your wrist (there is a caving website called ‘deep penetration’ – best not looked at whilst at wwwork, but that’s another story, how did I get onto that?!).If you wish to go virtual cave spotting (saddo!) then the guide books give an ordnance survey grid reference. To find somewhere on google earth you need to convert this to latitude & longitude, there are several free websites which will do this for you – e.g. --http://www.movable-type.co.uk/scripts/latlong-gridref.htmlhttp://www.dmap.co.uk/ll2tm.htmhttp://www.nearby.org.uk/conversions-more.cgiAlso interesting is the stuff on the ordnance survey web pages relating to grid references. http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/gi/nationalgrid/nationalgrid.pdfStuW.(sad case cave spotter) (I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE, HONEST – SOMEBODY ELSE ADMIT TO THIS PLEASE)
