03 Gru Three amazing caves
The caves have been around for 400 million years. Explorers and naturalists have been fascinated by the sight and written about them since the 19th century. They are really stunning. Back in the day, the mouth of the cave was said to look like the head of a spear, so it was dedicated to Lord Murugan, the Hindu God of War.
The 42.7 m Lord Murugan was built in 2006, and there are many temples dedicated to him scattered throughout the area, but the Batu Caves have been the center of Hindu pilgrimages and rituals for years.
In September this year I visited a part of the US National Park in Kentucky, the Mammoth Cave. It has the longest cave system in the world called the Mammoth-Flint Ridge Cave System with over 644 km of subterranean passageways. Established as a national park on July 1, 1941, it also became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1981 and an International Biosphere Reserve in 1990. The flora and fauna of Mammoth Cave is the richest cave-dwelling wildlife known, with more than 130 species within the cave system. The limestone labyrinth is the most important feature of this cave system, aside from its world-record length. It is composed of Mississippian-aged limestone strata that are built with a layer of sandstone. Hence, this makes the entire cave system incredibly stable.
It is known as the Crystal Cave, Skaftafell Ice Cave, Vatnajökull Ice Cave, or Breiðamerkurjökull Ice Cave. The cave we went to is part of Breiðamerkurjökull, which is an outlet glacier of the larger Vatnajökull glacier within Vatnajökull National Park. The ice caves are very fragile and there is always a threat of collapsing. The cave season is very short and the possibility of the visit depends on the weather. The trip is quite pricey, but well worth a visit!
cave – a hollow in the earth, especially one opening more or less horizontally into a hill, mountain, etc. (jaskinia)
crevices – a crack forming an opening; cleft; rift; fissure (szczelina)
cavity – any hollow place (jama, dziura)
spear – a long, stabbing weapon for thrusting or throwing, consisting of a wooden shaft to which a sharp-pointed head, as of iron or steel, is attached. (włócznia)
scattered – distribute at irregular intervals (rozproszone)
subterranean – existing, situated, or operating below the surface of the earth; underground (podziemne)
passageway – a corridor (korytarz, przejście)
dwell – live (mieszkać, żyć)
species – a class of individuals having some common characteristics or qualities; distinct sort or kind (gatunki)
limestone – a sedimentary rock consisting predominantly of calcium carbonate, varieties of which are formed from the skeletons of marine microorganisms and coral: used as a building stone and in the manufacture of lime (wapień)
outlet – an opening or passage by which anything is let out; vent; exit (ujście, odpływ)glacier – an extended mass of ice formed from snow falling and accumulating over the years and moving very slowly, either descending from high mountains, as in valley glaciers, or moving outward from centers of accumulation, as in continental glaciers (lodowiec)