I’ve driven past the caves that overlook Happy Valley so many times, each time thinking that I must explore them one day. Well, I finally did – and we found some interesting things up there.

I love the B6. It’s the coastal road that runs from Paphos to Limassol – and it offers the perfect Sunday afternoon drive. Not only does it take you through some beautiful countryside, it also takes you past loads of interesting places. Of the places we’ve visited, there’s Eleouthkia Botanical Gardens just past the airport, then Aphrodite Hills hotel. Further along there’s the scenic Aphrodite’s Rock with some gorgeous look-out points, and then you drive up and past beautiful Pissouri.

Keep going through Paramali village and into the British military base area. You’ll pass various housing estates but just stay on the road as it zigzags down the hill and into a green valley. This is Happy Valley. You aren’t actually allowed in it because it’s part of the military base, but you are allowed on the B6 that skirts the edge of it. If you keep following the B6 past the military base, it will eventually take you to the Sanctuary of Apollon Ylatis, Kourio Stadium, the ancient city kingdom of Kourion, and through the villages that lead to Limassol. I love this drive and, if I have time, will choose it over motorway driving any day.

 
Every time I drive along the B6 I notice the caves at the top of the hill overlooking Happy Valley. I wasn’t even certain they were caves or just shadows caused by the rock formations. But I was keen to have a look.

At the sharp bend around the bottom of Happy Valley, there’s a little road on the left leading to the Monastery of Christ of Symvoulas St George. We drove down there and parked opposite what looked like an old track leading up the hill. We weren’t sure it would take us to the caves but it was a good place to start.

We walked up the track and were pleased when it turned left in the direction of the caves. The view across Happy Valley with the sea sparkling in the sunshine was incredibly pretty.

The track ended three quarters of the way up, just beneath the caves. There were large boulders and scrub blocking the way, but we found our way through. This would be snake heaven in the warmer months – we’d chosen the right time of year for our expedition!

Once over the large boulders, we saw that there were at least two large caves up there. As we got nearer, pigeons exploded out of crannies in the rock, giving us a fright.

 
We walked into the largest cave, stepping round massive mounds of poo from the roosting birds above. Thick spider webs clung to the walls. I’d always wondered whether the caves were actually tombs, given their proximity to the Kourion necropolis. But I think these are natural caves. However, in a nook high in the cave wall I spotted a fragment of a bowl with some decoration on it. What it was doing up there I don’t know. Matt valiantly climbed up to retrieve it. Was this an archaeological find or a bowl from Jumbo?

The cave next door was smaller but deeper and someone had built a wall across part of the entrance. Inside, the walls were blackened from a bonfire that had been lit in it.

We could see that there were two more caves further along, one only accessible via the biggest cave. Lots more poo and some great views across the valley.

 
It was a right rigmarole reaching the final cave, but there was no way we were going home without exploring it. We had to crawl through bushes and climb boulders taller than us. Goobie loved it and I’m still not quite sure how he managed to do some of it. I watched as his little feet found hold in various crevasses and just hoped a cross snake, scorpion or tarantula wasn’t going to nab him. I knew, though, that Goobie’s endless chattering would have frightened anything away.

 
We waded through more bushes, jumped over more boulders, then finally reached the fourth cave that was higher up than the others. It was a lot smaller, but worth the effort.

 
We sat down to rest. I then noticed a little skull at my feet, and another. Then I noticed little parcels of bones squashed into large pellets all over the floor. Owl pellets, made when owls regurgitate the undigested parts of their food. It was fascinating. Whole mouse and bird skeletons squashed into balls. You could even see little mouse teeth. We looked up to where these pellets would have fallen from. A large white smear of poo led our gaze to nooks high in the ceiling. We didn’t see any owls, but I wondered whether they were watching.

 
The sun was starting to set and we returned to the car. I took the bowl fragment I’d found home with me. I sent a photo of it to my Archaeology teacher, who has excavated some of the most significant archaeological sites in Cyprus, including Kourion. He replied within minutes. ‘Nice find!’ he said. And told me that I’d found a piece of sgraffito, part of a Medieval bowl from the Venetian times. He said the breaks on it looked fresh and that there could be more of the bowl still in the cave.

Obviously, we had to return a few weeks later to check whether we could find any more of the bowl. But this time we went prepared. Armed with a torch, ladder and rake (for the bird poo), we climbed back up the hill, saying a cheery hello to a man we passed who gave us an odd look.

We gently raked through poo on the cave floor looking for bowl fragments. I climbed the ladder to have a proper look in the nook where we first spotted the bowl. Inside was ash from a bonfire. Rooting around in it, I found one more fragment from the bowl and a few fragments from another bowl. What were they doing up there? I haven’t a clue. But a few weeks later we visited Limassol Castle and I saw in the medieval museum a bowl fragment almost identical to mine. Could this be the missing half? Who knows? I will find out from my Archaeology teacher who I should hand the bowl to.

As readers of my blog will know, I like exploring nooks and crannies, caves and tombs. Why? I realised when I found the bowl that when I’m exploring these places, there’s a part of me that hopes to find something. Treasure? The entrance to an underground city? Like I’ve said before, I have an active imagination from reading far too many books.

But to actually find something . . . it felt, well, brilliant.