The Big Pit National Coal Museum
Blaenavon, Wales
The Big Pit National Coal Museum stays true to its name. The museum is an old, Welsh mine no longer in use. The tour guide who took us down into the mine was an old miner of the Big Pit before it closed. In fact, every one of the tour guides are past miners. From my understanding, one of the reasons the Big Pit was turned in to a museum was to give jobs back to the people, specifically the miners and their families, living in the surrounding community. Each people on the tour gets fitted with a helmut and belt that powers the light we get for our helmut. Before going down into the mine, anything that has a battery (watches, cell phones, cameras, etc.) has to be left above ground because of a bell system implemented in the mine. If anything with a battery is taken down in to the mine, lots of scary, seriously dangerous things could happen. That's why I don't have any pictures from down in the mine. Even if I had been able to take my phone or camera down, it was so dark, I probably wouldn't have had very many decent pictures anyway! For anyone planning on traveling to Wales, especially if you know anything about coal mining, mining, caving, being underground, horses, carbon monoxide, darkness, short life spans, or family traditions, you must visit the Big Pit. It was a truly amazing and enlightening experience.