Sometimes sinkholes are bad. And sometimes they made caves long ago that are still around and you can go explore them for free. That seems to be the case in a few places around our state. I recently took a day trip to Peace Cave near Crystal River on the Nature Coast. As you’ll see in my pictures, its just a dirt “parking lot” on the side of a 2 lane road. From there you follow a dirt and sand trail about a quarter of a mile and there are just caves there. Holes in the ground you can climb around and explore. In fact its clear that some people head there and go camping, or have a rave or something. A cave rave. That’s what I’m doing next time I go.
Peace Cave is not hard to find. In face follow this map and it will take you right to it.
It looks quite unassuming when you get there, but its also a nice walk through a forest. Didn’t see any bears right away either.
But when you finally get to the first cave, which is commonly known as “Vandal Cave” its a pretty cool little spot to climb and explore.
And back there to the left is a smaller cave that’s completely dark. But once you duck into the opening you can stand up straight again. And with a decent camera phone, or strong flashlight, you’re met with some new art in a totally dark room. And yes, you can hear tiny bats squeaking, but they were tucked away in a smaller nook and I couldn’t see them at all.
After you’ve explored Vandal Cave you can head off to what’s actually called Peace Cave. But its more for people who don’t mid crawling around in the dirt to get to deeper parts of the cave. Here’s the very small opening, and the tree with the peace sign that gives the cave its name from what I hear.
This cave also has bats you can hear but not see. And this is as far as I made it, which is only maybe 20 feet in before I didn’t want to crawl any further.
We just found these caves by doing a Google search for places to explore. You’d be surprised what you can find if you just look around Florida.
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