Have map, will travel.

According to the Lonely Planet Guide to India, one of the shopping highlights of Dehradun is the Survey of India Map Shop. The guide says it's a tiny shop with all sorts of current and antique Indian maps. As we're still a little confused about this vast country (remember, I wasn't allowed to buy an atlas at Christmas, because the government didn't like where Readers Digest, Collins, Oxford etc drew the international boundaries), we thought this might be a good shop to visit. It seems we must have been the only people to purchase the Lonely Planet Guide to India, travel to Dehradun and visit the Survey of India Map shop, for the people behind the counter seemed a little surprised to see us there. But they overcame their shock and showed us some fascinating maps, including one of Everest and surrounds from the 1920 expedition. Because we are not so adventurous we left that one behind. We did take a map of Dehradun which showed the location of Robbers Cave, and decided we were plenty adventurous enough to investigate that. Besides, it didn't sound anywhere near as cold!

Here we are at the mouth of Robbers Cave. Legend has it that in less civilised times robbers used these caves to hide from the law, and to hide their unlawfully gained booty. We weren't expecting to find any of this booty, we were expecting to have a nice walk along (or in) this small stream. At the time Rod took this photo, actuality was matching expectation. However, that was not to last...

At times the stream was a little deeper than ankle length. Some of us stopped to decide whether it was better to forge forward, or to go back and choose another way upstream. Some of us just forged forward...

That's a waterfall in front of Keir. How he thought he was going to get up it I have no idea. After he went in up to his armpits we called him back and climbed up the rocks on the right hand side of the picture (where the light is coming from). Eagle eyed viewers will notice Health and Safety hasn't troubled this tourist attraction yet. There's no hand rails nor are there useful Nanny State signs like "Be Careful. Water is Wet." However, a sign stating "Green Stones are Slippery Stones" wouldn't have gone astray. Eventually we came out of the cave complex, and the stream continued along a rocky gully.

It was a brilliant day out. The water is from the Himalayas, and it was crystal clear. Thankfully the Himalayas are still quite a way away, because the water was still pretty damn cold! It took three and a half hours to walk upstream and return to our starting point. And yes, we all slept well that night, and yes, we did ache afterwards!