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On the way to pumpkin hill there is a hill called Brandon Hill and on this hill is Brandon caves, the locals call them the bat caves. We walked here a few weeks ago but not had a chance to write up the blog so here it is!


The caves have several species of bats in them, mainly fruit bats but there are some 1 metre wing span vampire bats here too, the largest bat in the northern hemisphere! They don’t bite humans or cattle they eat small birds.


We were told they have their own chamber but we did not go and see them as you have to explore deeper into the caves.
Stories go that captain Henry Morgan the welsh pirate hid his treasure on the island and the bat caves is a place that locals think it could be. Have heard stories of people finding treasure on the island near Pumpkin Hill!


Any way we walked towards P Hill and then turned right, marked by a white post, then in front of us was a an outcrop of rocks and you could just make out the cave opening, not very big!


We had to climb up the sheer face of the rock, plenty of handholds but sharp!
Once up and in we turned on our lights and clambered through the low roofed cave until about 20metres in we could all sit down in a small chamber.


We turned our headlights off and it was pitch black, then listened as the bats flew around our heads. After a while we then headed back out of the cave, was difficult coming down as now we had wet-muddy feet and bums!


Once down we sat outside as the sun went down and watched the bats fly out of the cave, not all at once and no big ones. Was cool watching them fly out and swoop past us, you could feel them brushing past you or the wind from their wings.

Any way was a pretty cool experience and sure we will do again as more new volunteers turn up, to share the experience.
Bit difficult walking back from the cave sin the dark with just head torches trying not to trip up!

When you have the head torch on you can see all the spiders as their eyes (or something on them!) glows against the light, quite spooky as you can see squillions of em.

Forgot to say before that when the skies here are clear the stars just look amazing, loads of them and crystal clear against the dark sky, we had a star gazing night the other night, you could see mars and Saturn is quite mesmorising looking up at them sat on the jetty outside Tranquila bar. Have nearly fallen over a few times walking along looking up at them.


Also the moon seems the wrong way round.lol as it shrinks and grows up and down rather than from side to side, if that makes sense!

Linus fell off a pushbike this week trying to ride down to the airport beach with his surf board, brakes did not work and he went into a fence!

He is ok but had to repair his surfboard, cracked and a broken fin but he seems to have all the gear to fix it! Rut also recovered and managed to complete her open water before she left with Ellie and lelah, continuing their travelling experience on to Copan, supposed to be some really cool Mayan temples there, maybe I should divert my travels.

Got some good bat pictures from our sugar water feeder so added couple on to this blog, at night they go through athe whole container hundreds of em flying about really cool!

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