After sneaking into our tour two hours early we had the prospect of a whole afternoon in the Rhondda Valley ahead of us. As we'd already checked out on trip advisor for things to do it was looking like we'd be touring the shopping centres. This in the past would have been heaven but these days, I prefer to shop for experiences and make memories.
Then I saw a flyer for the Rhondda Heritage Centre, they had a working mine and seemed very reasonably priced. So off we went into the Valleee. We purchased our tickets and waited for our tour to begin. There were a few other family groups, one of which seemed to be a family from the US, GO was in hysterics because the mum had the same pack a mac as me. Well I had bought it from a supermarket, it was bound to happen one day.
The children were all very loud and obnoxious and as usual the parents found it amusing, to cover up the shame of having rude children. The two Welsh boys were the worst, and very demanding of the tour guides time, he was very lead by them, which may have been great if you were with them but for those of us who weren't it was very irritating.
One of the other gentlemen, began to ask questions and took over the tour guides attention, thankfully. We watched a few videos about life down the mines and watched the huge mechanism being fired up. It was amazing to see the big thing lurch into life. The we went into the helmet room where we each assigned a helmet before getting into the lift to go down into the mine.
It took about sixty seconds for us to be lowered into the mine, it was quite quick. I held on for dear life. We made our way through the mine tunnels, learning about life down the mine and the role of children and birds. Some points were quite dark and eerie, then we got to as fork I the mine where our miner told us how they would send children into the tunnels to lay explosives before detonating them, at this point he press a button and we experienced a explosion simulation. I thought it was real and screamed.
This seemed to signal the end of the mine experiences and we carried on walking. When we went down the Big Pitt we walked in a big circle before returning to the surface. This time we walked along the tunnel and we began to see light, it must be the lift I thought. PUT HATS HERE! read a sign, I didn't understand. Why were we taking our hats off before we got back up top?
Then it hit me, we hadn't been down a mine, the light wasn't the lift it was day light, we hadn't travelled hundreds of feet down into a mine we'd just gone down the cellar! I was flabbergasted, well done to them I feel for it hook line a sinker. GO's response was well the Health and Safety chat at the beginning was a bit brief for a trip down a real mine wasn't it?
The children were all very loud and obnoxious and as usual the parents found it amusing, to cover up the shame of having rude children. The two Welsh boys were the worst, and very demanding of the tour guides time, he was very lead by them, which may have been great if you were with them but for those of us who weren't it was very irritating.
One of the other gentlemen, began to ask questions and took over the tour guides attention, thankfully. We watched a few videos about life down the mines and watched the huge mechanism being fired up. It was amazing to see the big thing lurch into life. The we went into the helmet room where we each assigned a helmet before getting into the lift to go down into the mine.
It took about sixty seconds for us to be lowered into the mine, it was quite quick. I held on for dear life. We made our way through the mine tunnels, learning about life down the mine and the role of children and birds. Some points were quite dark and eerie, then we got to as fork I the mine where our miner told us how they would send children into the tunnels to lay explosives before detonating them, at this point he press a button and we experienced a explosion simulation. I thought it was real and screamed.
This seemed to signal the end of the mine experiences and we carried on walking. When we went down the Big Pitt we walked in a big circle before returning to the surface. This time we walked along the tunnel and we began to see light, it must be the lift I thought. PUT HATS HERE! read a sign, I didn't understand. Why were we taking our hats off before we got back up top?
Then it hit me, we hadn't been down a mine, the light wasn't the lift it was day light, we hadn't travelled hundreds of feet down into a mine we'd just gone down the cellar! I was flabbergasted, well done to them I feel for it hook line a sinker. GO's response was well the Health and Safety chat at the beginning was a bit brief for a trip down a real mine wasn't it?
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