Well this blog isn’t quite what we’d hoped it would be, but it’s been an adventure none the less!!

We’d been told there were some caves to the south west of Arnside Knott, and headed off to try to find them today.  We parked the car at Arnside Knott, in the National Trust car park at GR450774 (see full details for the walk up Arnside Knott here).

After doing a bit of research online, we were told there was a “geo-cache” box under a small juniper out of the south gate of the car park.  This would tell us the coordinates of the cave.

Off we went, with high spirits… until we saw loads and loads of small junipers, and spent over an hour prickling ourselves, looking for the box!!  With a cranky 5 and 3 year old who were getting more and more whingey by the minute, we decided to fix things… by getting the picnic out!

We gave up looking for the box, ate a mountain of food and asked every passer by if they knew of a cave in the area.  It seemed our luck was running out, but after nonsensically wandering around random bits of the forest, we finally stumbled across a woman who knew of a cave.

By this stage, we were desperate to find any cave to avoid disappointing the children (we’d promised them we’d find some pirates treasure in the cave, read: chocolate coins), and although it didn’t entirely sound like the one we were looking for, we went for it anyway!

The kind lady described the route, down on the footpath through Copridding Wood, and mentioned that it passed through the delicious Bob In Cafe, with it’s superb play area (GR443778).  I was familiar with Bob In, and knew the kids would enjoy themselves, so we stopped off to get some refreshments, use the facilities and let the kids run around the playground.

Note: the cafe opening hours are limited during the winter months. Nov, Jan & Feb it’s Fri, Sat & Sun: 10am-3.30pm. Closed Mon-Thurs and closed December.

This break gave us enough energy and motivation to crack on with our cave finding mission!  We walked up through the New Barns caravan park, almost to the end of the site.

Take the left fork here

At this point, you will see a sign post with two yellow footpath signs on, giving you a choice to go left or right on a footpath.  Take the left fork here.

When you see this sign post, take the left fork

Walk up this path until you see the metal gates.  Go through these metal gates, then veer right on the path and then left and the caves will be on your left.  The GR for the cave is GR439773.

Go through the gate, veer right and then left and the cave is on the left

Bob in Cafe is at the top right. Walk along the pink until you go through the gate, then follow the blue. Cave is on your left.

Once we’d got home I researched this area, and found out the caves are called “White Creek Mine” and used to be worked for Iron Ore.

We put on our helmets and head torches, and had a little explore.  The right cave goes nowhere but the left cave goes in about 20-30 metres, taking a 90 degree right turn about a third of the way in.  It was a bit of fun, and the kids were ridiculously excited, but please enter only at your own risk.  Old mines can be dangerous places.

The kids had their chocolate coins.  And us adults breathed a sigh of relief that we’d managed to fulfil our promise of a cave!

If you then continue up the main path, and head right, you appear on the coast and can do a clockwise circular walk back round to the Bob In Cafe and playground, although please be wary of high tide times and the Arnside Bore.

We then walked back up to the car, parked at the bottom of Arnside Knott, which took our walk to almost 3 miles in total.  To reduce mileage, it would be sensible to park at the Bob In Cafe (or on the end of the road just before the cafe) and start your exploring from there.

There are plenty of good little walks from here, well signed and marked on the OS map.

We will continue our mission to find the cave at Arnside Knott.  Please do let us know if you have any more information on it!

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Take the left fork here

Take the left fork here

When you see this sign post, take the left fork

Walk up to this gate

Go through the gate, veer right and then left and the cave is on the left

At Bob In Cafe

Bob in Cafe is at the top right. Walk along the pink until you go through the gate, then follow the blue. Cave is on your left.