"Mongolia is kind of close, right?" Story about an attempt to ski everywhere in the world where there's snow. And in some places where there isn't. On and off-piste skiing on all continents, skiing into craters of live volcanoes, caving, climbing, photography, and travel.
I was walking back from my car repair shop, having returned by loaner car... and they are working on my Volvo. Let's see if they can fix it. It's been there six months soon, and even under work for more than a month. But on the way back I run into small holes in a rock outcrop in Latokaski. Too small maybe to call a proper cave. But certain space where you can go under a rock.
There's actually the main space, a slightly smaller and lower space under a rock roof next to it. And couple of cracks.
An overview of the main and side cave area:
Main cave was shown from the inside in the opening picture of this post. Here's a closeup from outside:
Side shelter cave:
Couple of cracks nearby:
Read more urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos and text (c) 2024 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.
Trip to the IETF conference in Dublin started. But it feels like I’m going in the wrong direction when after a long warm spell it just now started snowing .. fortunately bumped to old friends at the airport. And managed to squeeze in a traditional stop at the airport sauna on the way in, too :-)
For more flying stories, check out the planetflier.com website! For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot and TGR! The photos and text (c) 2024 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. I never take photos of other saunagoers or swimmers. and visit at times where there is simply no one else around or the facility has been booked only for me.
While I'm flying economy as always, I have some status with Finnair which lets me in various lounges. At the Dublin airport I visited the T1 lounge. Didn't have too many expectations, but the breakfast serving was quite good, they had the usual hot stuff and bread and croissants. But also a good selection of juices, porridge, chia seed-based porridge, selection of cheeses, etc.
For more flying stories, check out the planetflier.com website! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot and TGR! The photos and text (c) 2024 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.
I was in Dublin for a conference, pretty tight agenda but I did manage to do a cave hike on one morning. And visit a local spa for a quick swim and sauna on the last evening!
There are many excellent sounding swimming pools and saunas in the city, but I picked The Spencer Health Club just because it happened to be conveniently on my way between the convention center and my hotel. And it didn't have any of the complications that many other gyms have, memberships required, etc.
This gym is operated in the Spencer Hotel basement, I guess free for the hotel guests but also possible for anyone to visit by paying the quite reasonable price (15€). You need to bring your own towel, and bring your own lock for the locker.. but turns out that you can loan one from the reception too, so no worries. Very friendly staff,
The club has an 18-meter pool with nice lights, a jacuzzi, a Finnish sauna and a Turkish sauna. There's showers and changing rooms. Not the changing rooms and showers are a bit dated, otherwise the facilities are good.
For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot and TGR! The photos and text (c) 2024 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. The pool picture is by the Spencer Hotel. I never take recognisable photos of other saunagoers or swimmers. and try to visit at times where there is simply no one else around or the facility has been booked only for me.
I was visiting Dublin for a conference, but managed to sneak out for an early morning exploration on one of the days. I had already skied in Dublin eleven years ago. But I had not been to a cave in Ireland! Are there any around? I found an article from the award-winning local cave photographer and author Robert Mulraney which said, "The first thing that can be said of the caves of Dublin is that, there are no caves in Dublin". However, it turns out there are some, and Robert goes through these in his article. The caves are not big.. but very interesting. And actually, they *are* big for someone coming from the land of thousands lakes and mini caves :-)
I should first say though that these caves are potentially dangerous, there are treacherous cliffs or the caves may fill with water suddenly due to tides. And of course there are all the usual dangers of caving. Take care. Do not even think of approaching them unless you know what you are doing. And contact locals first, I did that too.
And I did get many warnings along the way. First off, as I exited my hotel in the around 6am, I wondered why the lifts were showing a do-not-enter sign, and then the fire horns started blazing. I ran down the stairs and ordered my taxi, and hoped everything was alright. I guess it was, the hotel was still standing when I came back.
And then there was a warning that I couldn't take my horse with me. Phew, thank goodness I left it at the parking lot:
Then there was a sign that the path may collapse. Ok, that's normal. But then I looked more carefully... it also warns about chemtrails :-)
In any case, enough about the warnings. I finally found the caves.
There's actually several, I was able to visit six, but I think I missed the largest one that I believe is called Gloop Rift. Although it may have been impassable at the time due to tide. At least the entrance not was not obvious.
Two of the caves I visited were bigger, some tens of meters, and had nice cave forms. The first of these was called The Maze:
And the second was the Priest's Chamber:
The others were small, probably not proper caves by anyone else's standards :-)
The caves are subject to the sea forces and erosion, but they are actually karst caves, formed through dissolution processes of limestone. Interestingly, Dublin has different types of limestone. I was north of Dublin, near Portrane. There the limestone is from the Ordovician period and is able to form caves, whereas elsewhere the limestone type doesn't tend to form caves as easily. Hence, there's really not much other caves in the Dublin area.
I walked through the caves that I could see twice. And did a 3D scan of The Maze on my iPhone's lidar sensor. Then I felt like I had to leave, the water wasn't rising yet but I was on the wrong side of the tide when the clock has passed 8am and I didn't want to be in the narrow caves when the water would rise :-)
Here's the 3D model that scanned, first a snapshot of what it looks like:
The actual model is in GLTF format here for download, and you can rotate it on your browser here. You can see a short a video also below, but you get higher resolution if you rotate it yourself:
I used my Cave Outliner to convert the 3D model to a map. The full map in high resolution is in PDF format here. Here's the horizontal plane picture of that:
Note that the first side passage to the right of the entrance is fake, resulting from a scanning artifact where the iPhone's sensor double-recorded the entrance wall, thinking it was inside the cave. I also don't know if the left and right branches of the cave actually connect, but according to the model they do.
With the exception of those errors, the model is quite nice.
And here is the vertical view of the map:
It is interesting to compare the horizontal plane picture to the one footprint picture generated by the 3D scanning app, Polycam. Here it is for The Maze:
Thanks to Robert for the excellent article about Dublin's caving, the limestone and for site intel. Maybe next time in Dublin we can meet, or somewhere else if our paths cross! Robert also has a related article about mines in the Dublin area.
The cave with most stalactites was The Maze, see the pictures below and at the top of this post and where I mentioned Maze earlier.
The cave with two levels, Priest's Chamber is shown below. I was afraid to climb to the second level, being alone. Even if there was a rope that I could have used as assist. It was quite nice though, with colors. See the pictures below:
Other views seen on the trip:
I also want to recommend the La Cave Wine Bar, an excellent restaurant with exactly the right underground atmosphere (link, and thanks Stephen for taking us there):
Other small cavelets nearby, first one:
Second one:
Third one:
Fourth one:
Read more urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos and text (c) 2024 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.
