Honister Slate Mine

Everyone's talking about the weather out here. It's the warmest October anyone can remember, and the sun has been shining all week. It's so amazingly beautiful. What better time to take a scenic drive up Honister pass to the slate mine?

We booked ourselves a tour at 3:30 and began the long drive up Honister pass. The road was one of those terrifyingly-narrow British affairs. There was a stone fence along both sides of the road, and the road itself was just barely wide enough to accommodate two cars if everyone kept their cars exactly in the right spot. Every time we passed a car, we traveled within inches of one another. I could literally have reached out my window and high-fived the passengers of the other cars. (Come to think of it, I should have actually high-fived someone. How awesome would that have been?)

Here's a photo I snapped as we passed one of the cars on the road. I'm not sure if you can tell, but we are incredibly close to one another.

And this wasn't even the closest scrape. We passed a giant tour bus on the road, and none of us thought that we were going to be able to fit. But, the bus driver just came on through as if it was no big deal. And to him it probably wasn't. I'm sure he'd driven the road a hundred times, and he could estimate the space between cars to the inch. Which is about as close as he got to us.



I know that the British drivers out here are used to this kind of tight squeeze, but it amazes me every time. I'm so glad Matt was driving!

It wasn't too scary, though, because everyone was going very slowly. And with scenery like this, who can really complain?

 The other thing that amazed me on the drive was the number of sheep that were loose on the road. Those guys were everywhere, posing quite a furry little obstacle. There were a few spots on the road near Buttermere where the sheep were actually sleeping in the road.

Bold move, sheep. Very bold.

What do you think? Enough room for two cars plus two sheep?

Anyhow, once we made it up to the slate mine, we wandered around the grounds for a little bit and got all suited up in our safety gear.

Weirdly, Matt, Erin, Frankie and I were the only four people that had signed up for a mine tour that day, so we got to have our own private tour guide, Roland. It was simultaneously awesome (because it felt like a VIP tour, tailor-made just for us) and awkward (because Roland was easily distracted and got off on hilariously-prolonged conversational tangents that we couldn't escape from: his disdain for the Victorians, the origins of the English language, why Obama "isn't his favorite person," and so forth). We weren't really participating in the conversations, just observing. A captive audience, so to speak.

That said, though, the tour was really interesting. We saw incredible caverns, saw how miners used to live, and got a demonstration on how slate was removed from the mountain in the 19th century.

Frankie had a good time on the tour, and loved the idea that we were getting to see what the inside of a mountain looks like. Her favorite part of the tour, though, was the yellow lab (Belle) that came along with us. Frankie had the job of entertaining the lab, and got to throw rocks for her to fetch while the grown-ups talked about the ins and outs of slate mining.

Here's us, inside and around the mine:

There were quite a few dark and creepy places on the mine tour, but for me the scariest part of the tour was when we were on our way out of the mine, headed up one of the long tunnels. We were quietly squelching through the mud, when all of a sudden.....SQQQQQQUAKKKKKK!!!!!!! A rooster ran into the mine, wings flapping, all kinds of mad. I was behind the rest of the group, and the bird made a beeline for me, and had me cornered. I called out for help but alas, no one heard me over the squawking. I was on my own, trying to get past the screaming, pecking, flapping bird. And you know, I hate birds. 

Eventually, I summoned enough courage to jump around him and high-tail it out of the mine. I'm guessing that I now have the honor of being the only person ever attacked by a rooster inside a slate mine.