Guided walks

The Trust runs a summer programme of day guided walks and evening bat walks open to the general public.

On the day walks, expert guides will introduce you to the development of the caves and then take you to the limekilns, into the quarry and then into Joint Mitnor Cave; this is the cave with the bones of animals that lived around the River Dart between 120,000 and 80,00 years ago. The museum, bookstall and shop will be open. A visit of this sort will normally take about 2 hours and is suitable for all adults and children of primary school age and upwards. However, access to the quarry and cave is not possible for wheelchair users.

The bat walks take place at dusk. Following a short introduction, visitors are provided with electronic detectors that make the bats’ sounds audible, a checklist of the frequencies used by the bats and a head torch. The group then walks to the top of Buckfastleigh Hill, where guides will point out the best locations for seeing and hearing bats and help visitors in using the detectors. Families with children are particularly welcome on these walks.

All walks will be advertised on this website, on leaflets and posters and on local and regional news outlets. Online pre-booking will be available for all walks. This is required for bat walks where numbers are limited to 20 per walk. For day walks, where the number per walk is limited to 30, it is possible to just turn up and join a walk if space is available. A charge is made for both types of walk.

Details of the current walks programme can be found on the Latest News page.