IG听力2019 part1 sectionB音频

[00:00.77] Deciding what to do with your family over a short school break can be quite difficult.

[00:06.30] Visiting castles, traditional museums or art galleries are not always exciting enough and there is the possibility that you will have bored children on your hands.(11)

[00:18.24] However, if you want your excited young explorers to have an unusual experience you could take them to a coal mining museum in the Brecon Beacons National Park in Wales, not to admire the beautiful countryside but to go down a real coal mine.

[00:35.78] Previous visitors have said it was a memorable experience!

[00:41.63] Standing on the stunning heather-covered moors at the heart of what was once an industrial landscape, is the Big Pit,

[00:49.63] a coal mine dug in the early 1860s to provide coal for the local ironworks, for powering steam engines and for heating thousands of workers’ homes.

[01:04.47] This international award-winning mining museum offers an underground tour in which visitors can take a trip down the 90-metre mine shaft

[01:15.40] to discover what conditions were like for Welsh miners between the 1860s and 1970s.(13)

[01:25.14] The mine and its buildings at the Big Pit are a time capsule

[01:30.48] which shows the development of the mine over 100 years.

[01:35.79] The buildings have been carefully looked after and maintained

[01:39.81] so that the life of the pit and the stories of the people who worked there are brought vividly to life.

[01:48.54] The winding engine and cages are fully operational and visitors,

[01:55.21] once they have put on helmets and lamps, are taken on a thrilling ride down the deep mineshaft in these cages.(14)

[02:03.42] Children will love this as within a matter of minutes they are in a completely different world.

[02:10.60] They are taken on a tour where they learn first-hand from a former coal miner what life was like for the men and boys who worked in the coal mine.(15)

[02:22.56] To remember your experience in the mine you can buy some interesting gifts, some made of coal.