I’ve been caving – spelunking – before, back when I was a teenager, and I’m not sure I could do it now. I remember having to swim in icy cold water under a stalactite and shimmy along tunnel-like passages. I don’t know how I did it – it gives me the shivers just thinking about it now.
But I have been in a cave since, in Thailand, and I was totally unprepared. I found myself on a makeshift tour, on my hands and knees, army-shuffling through what was basically a tunnel with the dimensions of an air duct. I remember seeing a cave spider on the wall – it was bloody dark in there – and thinking, ‘Oh god, are they all over the wall?’
Don’t worry, our guide said, it’s nothing compared to when he slept there overnight with nothing but a candle, which went out, and when he woke up to relight it, he found himself completely surrounded by cave spiders.
I was very reassured.
Still, there was an amazing moment where the guide pointed into the blackness of another chamber and it became slowly apparent he was pointing out a colony of bats. God knows how many were in there. Hundreds? Thousands?
I was quite relieved to get out.
There are great caves in Grow Home. They feel really, really cavey. Outside it’s a beautiful balmy day, but in here it’s dark and still and you can almost feel the cool air.
Brilliantly, I think there’s an Achievement for finding all the game’s caves. I remember this because for an age I had found all but one. I’d found the cave with the weird little glowing critters, the one with the bull, the one that you can drop down into by pulling the boulders aside…