Dig in: a family adventure in the caves of North Yorkshire

The road to Upper Nidderdale is a road to nowhere. Somewhere ahead of us, the ashphalt runs out and farm tracks take over. In the village of Bewerley, my son points out the slow-down road signs illustrated with comic rubber ducks. We pass a beer garden shaded by a two-storey waterwheel carcass, like a long-abandoned prop from the mines of Moria in the Lord of the Rings.

Tourists don’t end up in this remote part of the North Yorkshire – an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty on the border the Yorkshire Dales national park – by chance, and historically that’s been part of the challenge for the little-known adventure hub at How Stean Gorge, where I’m heading for a family weekend of caving and gorge scrambling. I spend the last few miles of our journey holding my breath as we edge past tractors between mossy drystone walls.

Over millions of years, the limestone rock in this area has crumbled like an ageing wedge of wensleydale cheese. Naturehas rubbed and pummelled these hills into chasms and its caverns draw potholers from across the country. Somewhere hidden to the west of Nidderdale lies Gaping Gill – one of Britain’s largest subterranean chambers, where once a year adventurous souls gather ceremoniously to be winched into its abyss.

But the caves closest to How Stean Gorge are particularly well suited to small explorers, which is why I’m here with my kids (aged five and eight). New owners have big plans for the site. This summer they bought a strip of land on the north side of the gorge to give them access to two more caves, Hazel Close and Oxbow, which are being opened up with ladders. By next year they will have built a series of bridges across the gorge, carving out a one-mile hiking loop that will connect with existing paths on the southern side – perfect for little legs.

Wooden chalet accommodation is also new, in a clearing framed by a dreamy sweep of gentle hills. We arrive to find a bag of logs on our doorstep and a cat under the porch, whom my kids quickly nickname Zazzy. The open-plan bunkroom is a little on the basic side and we have to use the camping field’s toilet block, but the owners are pitching these chalets at groups and it’s the perfect setup for families and groups on a budget (there are four 10-bed chalets, plus a four-bed and a six-bed opening next week). Most have private wood–fired hot tubs, too. Within minutes, sausages are sizzling on the barbecue and we’re all marvelling at the foghorn bellows of a nearby cow.

How Stean Gorge can arrange all sorts of activities, including canoeing, via ferrata and canyoning, but because of the age of my kids we’re advised to try gorge walking. “I can waddle like a penguin!” screeches the five-year-old next morning after I finally manage to haul the blubbery neoprene suit up her sticky shins and thighs. The kids look like superheroes as they’re winched down into the low-lying river from a bridge spanning the gorge. Grins all round. So far, so good.

What follows is a slippery water ride that the eight-year-old confidently assures me makes this the best day of his life. Heading upriver through frothy pools and over boulders slick with moss, we flounce like seals and flounder like fish. “Watch me do the silly salmon!” shouts our guide, Jeff, as he bombs side-first into a deep pool shaped like the figure eight, comically waggling his legs in unison like a merman.

When we reach the mouth of How Stean Tunnel, we are having none of Jeff’s idea that we walk through it in the pitch black. Luckily, we’re equipped with head torches. Shoulders get scuffed and my arachnophobic daughter magically appears to zone out several spiders as we contort our bodies to slip through the tall chasm, the river now just a trickle at our feet. We sit in a warm puddle at one point while Jeff illuminates a rock face teeming with the fossils of crinoids – ancient, fern-like marine animals – and gives us a geology lesson on how they were trapped here after the last ice age.

Heading back downstream, we strip off the neoprene and don hard hats to enter Tom Taylor’s Cave – so-called because of the blackguard who used to hide his loot here in the 18th century. The prospect of treasure and ghouls keeps the kids highly entertained as they scale ladders and edge their way through the higgledy-piggledy 100-metre passageway, past a dripping stalactite.

“There’s a lot of history here,” says Dan Liddy, How Stean’s head of outdoor education and adventure, when we later discuss the site’s plans in the cantilevered, glass-floored cafe suspended over the gorge. From this vantage point it looks even more lush and prehistoric. “We’ve actually got a wall that was built in Viking times. The caves in the site have been lived in, worked around and farmed for a thousand years.” Because of the fossils, the gorge is also a site of specific scientific interest. It was the Victorians who first turned it into a tourist attraction, adding flimsy handrails.

On our way home the next day we make a detour to another Victorian tourist attraction, Stump Cross Caverns, just inside the Yorkshire Dales national park. The caves were discovered by enterprising lead miners, who opened them up for guided tours. Wolverine skulls have been unearthed in the deep, winding passageways. The caves made headlines during the pandemic when owner Lisa Bowerman raffled off her campervan and lived in the caves for 105 hours to raise money to help the business survive.

“Lisa isn’t here, but our resident cavewoman is,” says Oliver, Lisa’s son, when we arrive at the ticket booth. Since reopening, Bowerman has reinvented the family business, making it even more child-oriented, and her new cavewoman persona has been a huge hit. To the giant fossil-littered sandpit and busy cafe, she has added gem digs and cavewoman breakfasts. When we meet her, my kids gawp unashamedly at the tusk pinning back her hair à la Pebbles Flintstone.

We’re booked in for another one of Bowerman’s innovations: underground afternoon tea. “When Lisa told me she wanted to introduce this, I thought she was mad,” her second-in-command tells me as he unloads huge, still-warm fruit scones on to a table crammed with tea and coffee pots, juice cartons, dishes of jam and ramekins of clotted cream. It’s a feast that draws comments from passersby, all of whom are in agreement with my kids that it’s the best idea ever. Who needs Center Parcs when you’ve got Yorkshire?

The trip was provided by Visit Harrogate and How Stean Gorge, where 10-bunk chalets with hot tubs cost from £234 a night and have log burners for the cooler months. There are also chalets sleeping four or six. Activities run year-round