Faerly Hole in the Jenny Jump Forest

The "Shades of Death Road" address was odd, but the day and the nature was wonderful. I found the Faerly Hole cave easily on the shores of the Ghost Lake, and walked in. It wasn't before I had crawled through a small hole that I realised something the rock walls above me were covered in layers of spiders and crickets. Thick enough to form a dark mass. And that mass had now awakened and was dropping and jumping on me.

Eww.

I had to get out. The hole that I crawled through was not tight, but not designed for hurried for the arachnophobics :-) Once outside I calmed and returned a bit to take a few photographs without disturbing the inhabitants.

Faerly Hole is a small (5-7 meters) cave opening on rock wall on the shores of a small lake in New Jersey's Jenny Jump Forest state park. A wonderful place, warm, dry cliff near the water. There have been remnants of Indian inhabitation on this site, so somebody has taken a note of this site even at historic times.

There's reportedly another cave nearby, the Fairly Low cave that's 50 meters long and only crawable. That sounded interesting, but despite walking in the forest and cliffs nearby, I did not manage to find the other cave.

By now I had run out of time. I was only here because I had a long layover in New York and had to drive back to the airport. The cave is only 90 minutes away from JFK, but obviously New York traffic can increase that time.

And I often end up having long waiting times in New York. This time the only reasonably priced flights that I was able to find for my Nevada trip consisted of two red eye flights, first to New York and in the evening to Helsinki.

The cave's coordinates are N 40.92399411 W 74.89484400.

For other articles about this place, see the Reddit thread, USA Today article, and the geocacher's discussion thread.

Photos and videos (c) 2017 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

Swimming in the Atlantis

I swam in the Atlantis, I had to!

Atlantis, the Reno casino hotel. Actually, I had to find a place to shower and get a sauna, as I had skied in two different Lake Tahoe ski areas, driven a lot of miles in the car, and on my way to the airport. I no longer had my own hotel, so was looking forward to visiting some place.

The price was steep though, 70 USD for a swim & sauna & shower!

For that money, you get to swim in the indoor pool (not so special), in the very nice outdoor jacuzzi (very nice, given the cold air!), and visit two different saunas.

Felt fresh afterwards.

Photos (c) 2017 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

Reno Swimming

I finally managed to test the pool area in the Homewood Suites hotel in Reno. It was OK, even if there was no sauna... at least there was a hot jacuzzi! :-)

I've had a long week... no time or energy to do anything other than fall asleep once I got to the hotel in the evenings.

Photos (c) 2017 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

Sacred Cave

Sacred cave. Sacred place. Secret place. This place has suffered, but is still sacred for those who believe in it.

I made a visit to observe the beauty of this place. Being careful to not touch anything, not break anything, not disturb the gods. Just marvel at this creation. A wonderful cave. Not big, but interesting. And one with history.

I was not the only one who has been here, the cave is still cherished by the believers, leaving hearts, flowers, and jewellery on the site.

Reaching this place is not easy, even though it is in some way close to civilisation. A hike that crosses the path of periodically hitting waves, wild nature, steep faces. And you have to be careful to not have civilisation hit you as well.

Here are some pictures:

(Colors enhanced a bit to show the blue better.)

Photos and videos (c) 2017 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

SIN to HEL

Made the classic "SIN to HEL" trip again.

This time flying on Finnair A350-900, painted in Marimekko colours.

Photos (c) 2017 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

Singapore Caving

Eight days inside a shopping mall. Enough! The question for the ninth day though was if I could find something interesting. Are there any caves in Singapore? There was scant information in the Internet, but it seemed like there could be beach caves on the Sentosa island, if we only could find low enough tide moment to reach them.

Or be able to reach the place, among all the fenced-off areas and luxury hotels on Sentosa.

Eight days inside the same hotel-shopping-mall-conference center complex? I had not left the building except once to cross the road for a restaurant and a second time to walk to another one few blocks away.

On the ninth day, Tero, Paul, Yu and me set off and decided that we'd just come off the taxi at the Shangri-La resort lobby, and look like we were residents. It worked, "Welcome back, Sir" :-)

We headed off towards the beach, crossed the grassy area where a wedding ceremony was being setup, and found our beach. Cliffs surround the western tip of the Sentosa island, an area that isn't really developed except for the museum relating to the fortifications from the second world war. It was easy to descend to the beach on a rocky slope. And there was plenty of space between the cliff and the sea. The tide was at its lowest point I guess during the whole week.

But we still didn't know what we'd find. There weren't too many pictures of this place, and no clear documentation what caves there might be. Only a rumour that one of the caves should have a shrine. If we found the right ones.

We quickly found the first cave, which also turned out to be the best one. It starts under a overhanging part of the cliff, with roots and branches of trees hanging above our heads. A small crack that is at the beginning wide enough that you can just walk in. But then the going gets tougher. You have to crawl in, on your side and squeeze into the innards of the cave. Somehow that made the cave special. Not a mere walk-in, but something enclosed, something you have to work for. Inside the cave gets again larger, and continues overall I guess 6-7 meters. There's enough space to sit up, turn around, and there's even a side tunnel to the left. The floor is made up of smooth sand, with an occasional patch of garbage or seaweed brought in by the high tides. And a couple of neat holes in the sand, wondering what animal is lurking in them...

Other caves are not as big, but are all interesting. A short tunnel that leads to a large rectangular room filled with empty plastic bottles. Sigh. If you've spent any time in the shores of world's oceans, you'll know that even the most remote beaches are full of plastic junk.

Then there was the crack that ended up in a nicely greenish rock. And a big, odd triangular cliff form with a two-meter wide deep canyon behind it before the cliff.

No shrine that we could see.

Here's a list of the caves and their coordinates:

• Cave 1 is the biggest cave, also first as you walk from the Shangri-La resort: N 1.25764763° E 103.80857746°


• Cave 2 is to the left of the big cave: N 1.25759341° E 103.80851340°


• Cave 3 is a low-lying rectangular slot going directly forward into the cliff. This cave gets very narrow but continues for several meters: N 1.25775910° E 103.80845944°


• Cave 4 is to the left of cave 3, a crack that goes sideways into the rock. This cave has green rock at the end of the cave: N 1.25775330° E 103.80838261°


• Cave 5 is group of six caves: a tunnel that leads to a big room full of empty bottles, another smaller hole leading to the insides of the cliff, a hole that you can crawl through to the other side of a part of a cliff, and several narrow cracks. One of narrow cracks has a motorcycle helmet stuck in it: N 1.25865848° E 103.80745343°


• Cave 6 has a partially dirt roof, and sits next to the easternmost military tower: N 1.25928590° E 103.80681097°


• Cave 7 starts out with partially man-made front wall, but splits then into two natural tunnels with nice sand floor. This cave is next to the westernmost military tower. N 1.25982392° E 103.80675164°


• Triangle stone in front of the cliff: N 1.25841976° E 103.80765166°

Video:



More pictures, first from our after caving at the Shangri-La:

Triangle stone:

Cave 1:

Cave 2:

Cave 3:

Cave 4:

Cave 5:

Cave 6:

Cave 7:

Military towers:

Cliff and beach:

Photos and videos (c) 2017 by Tero Kivinen, Jari Arkko, Paul Wouters and Yu Cheng. All rights reserved. The song "Time Passing By" by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

This blog article has also been published at TGR. Tämä blogiartikkeli on julkaistu myös suomeksi Relaassa. Our exploration was inspired by this and this article about the Sentosa caves.

No swim for you

No swim for you Sir... because thunderstorm. Ok, but at least I got wet from the rain as I walked to the pool at the Swissotel & Fairmont Singapore.

Photos (c) 2017 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

Swissotel Singapore Sauna... Closed WTF?

I arrived... and needed a sauna. Or at least an excuse to completing that document. Actually, I really needed a sauna to wash off travel and to warm me up from the freezing aircon climate.

So I went to the sauna at Swissotel the Stamford, Singapore. The spa area, Willow Stream, is incidentally on the linked, co-operating Fairmont side.

Unfortunately, the proper sauna was closed. I was able to visit the steam room and hot pool though, but even they will be closed for almost a week. Grr.

Photos (c) 2017 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. More sauna stories at Saunablogger.cool.

Marinated Leather Jacket

Mmm... should have ordered this.

Photo (c) 2017 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. More Planetskier stories can be found Planetskier.net.

Bunkers in Kirkkonummi City

Today's exercise was to visit the Jolkby and Lindal bunkers near Kirkkonummi center. The designation "Command Bunker" promised much, but unfortunately, we could not get in. Digging might help, but while the tunnel started promisingly, it ended in dirt and a big stone. But we were able to enter the one in Lindal!

The command bunker is massive. I measured 11 by 12 meters, looking at the air ducts, entrance holes, and gun opening. And, I think this is the type that is two stories, so we're talking about 200 square meters of bunker space... quite possibly never visited after 1956. It would be interesting to dig the tunnel through and see what's inside. Scary perhaps.

But I actually wonder about the "command bunker" designation. Everything we've seen points to a ZIF-25 type bunker, similar to the one we saw in Degerby and in Masala. There's certainly a gun hole. So how come this would be a "command" bunker? But perhaps there was merely some communications equipment somewhere.

All in all, would be fun to get to explore what's inside. The bunker looks intact, but of course we don't know if the insides have been blow, it is possible. So far we have not found a single ZIF-25 or large bunker intact.

We also found two dugouts north of the command bunker. They have not been marked as parenthesis time remnants, but... we couldn't figure out what else they could be, and they would be in the right place for that too. In one dugout there was a long metal sheet, and in the other one an old style car. Later pieces of garbage, or from Soviet occupation times?

We found a children's playground war trench next to the bunker as well! Maybe the local farm kids? Anyway, well constructed trench... a bit smaller than the command bunker.

It was also quite funny that in the Lindal bunker there were Karjala beer cans. Left there later, but the concept of the Soviet army liking Karjala was interesting, for they did like Karjala so much that they annexed the entire region of Karjala.

The Lindal bunker was right next to plenty of houses, so the bunker's main entrance had been blocked, and gun and top exit holes had been covered with wooden lids. Movable, but safe at least against accidentally falling into these holes. I should say that I hit my knee on a sharp end of an invisible piece of rebar; this place -- like abandoned bunkers in general -- is not safe. Take care.

Kids: WARNING: Do NOT enter this bunker. Or any other bunkers. Same for adults.

Coordinates, the Jolkby command bunker: N 60.12613714° E 24.45087150°, the children's playground trench N 60.12635739° E 24.45093882° and the two trenches: N 60.12626913° E 24.45253595° and N 60.12619190° E 24.45248701°. The Lindal bunker is at N 60.13219612° E 24.43210994°.

Most of the pictures in this blog are by Jarmo; he and Eino were on the trip.


Pictures from the command bunker:

Dugouts:

Children's playground trench:

Lindal bunker, outside:

Lindal bunker, inside:

This blog article is also available on TGR. Photos and videos (c) 2017 by Jarmo Ruuth and Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. Music by Ethan Meixsell "Collision", available for free for use in videos at  https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/music.