Jenolan Caves

Tuesday, 30 May 2017

Cave House

Crimson rosella

Lake Oberon Dam

Just in case we hadn’t noticed, I was reliably informed this morning that south east Australia is having a cold snap!  With the temperature at 2 degrees at 8.00 pm last night and -5 this morning, I think I had worked that one out.  The roofs, cars and caravans were covered with frost when the sun rose, which made it feel even colder.  Our poor heater struggled to raise the temperature to 8 degrees.

Today we visited the Jenolan Caves, about half an hour’s drive south of Oberon.  From a height of 1360 metres above sea level, the road dropped 500 metres in just over 3 kilometres – a fairly scary section of narrow road with sharp switchbacks and long drops over the side.  It was rather a relief to arrive at the bottom!  After deciding on a visit to the Diamond Cave, we enjoyed the cold sunshine for half an hour before heading underground, along with about 25 other people.  Virtually straight after entering the cave, we climbed down 66 steps to the river (well worth the climb) and then climbed up 66 steps.  We continued through this cave system, with more steps to negotiate and low headroom in places which necessitated some stooping – at least it wasn’t a cave experience which required overalls and crawling.  The limestone formations were very pretty, many of them sparkling in the light, and varied in colour from white, to pale apricot, deep apricot and orange.

Lunch was “enjoyed” at the Cave House (enough said), although we did enjoy the company of a crimson rosella hoping to be fed, before we tackled the drive back up the hill.  We only met one car and he was travelling way too fast and on the wrong side coming around a blind corner.  Both drivers suffered some degree of an increase to their heart rates and we were so lucky we were going very slowly and weren’t six feet further on.  We did a quick detour into the Lake Oberon dam wall on our way back, but with the temperature about 8 degrees and a very strong southerly adding a huge wind chill factor to the temperature, it was a quick look and back down the hill to the car.