Having decided we would forgo the wine we set off to visit as many of the caves in this area as we could. In the end we actually only visited the three major ones but as there are over 100 in the area if we had tried to do them all we probably needed a couple of days! We started with the nearest one and worked our way down. The first cave was Mammoth, so called because it is huge! This is the only one that you can wonder around at your own pace as you are given an audio guide which gave just enough information to keep you interested and moving through the cave. This is a large cave that they believe was previously used for shelter as a large number of bones have been found in the cave, its age is also shown by the fact that there are remains of some of Australia’s giant animals (Megafauna) that became extinct around 46,000 years ago there is even a jaw bone embedded in the limestone crystals that comes from a Zygomaturus who roamed this part of Australia 50,000 years ago! The cave is 500m long and 300m deep. It was fist discovered by European settlers in about 1850 but it wasn’t fully explored until 1895 by Tim Connelly who was appointed caretaker of the cave and conducted tours by lamplight until 1904 when electric lighting was installed. As we climbed out of the cave we realised that without knowing it we had walked under the road and as this is the main road to the cave you were completely unaware as you couldn’t hear a thing. We walked across the road and back through a bit of the forest to the visitor centre and onto our next cave. They have a really good system here that as you arrive at one cave you can ask for them to ring and book you on a tour at the next one you are going to visit so we set off for Lake Cave where we joined a fully guided tour. Lake Cave is so called because it has a lake inside, although due to changing conditions they now have the option of ‘pumping’ water into the cave as it stopped flowing for a while but has since started again. The roof of the massive chamber collapsed a number of years ago so you actually walk down into what feels like a massive sink hole before finally climbing down the steps to the cave itself, once you have done this you finally get a view of the stalactites and stalagmites that have formed over thousands of years and reflect perfectly in the water. This cave is still growing and you can see the drops of water running down the straws which ultimately will become stalagmites. The star attraction of the cave is the ‘Suspended Table’ this is a formation that weighs several tonnes and looks like it is hovering over the water, if you crouch down you can see the underside reflected in the water. This is quite a deep cave and the climb out was a little exhausting, perhaps we should have done this at the start of the holiday when we were a little fitter! Our final cave for today was Jewel Cave, this is the largest show cave in Western Australia and as the guide said when we first entered the initial room is what Lake cave would have looked like if the roof hadn’t collapsed. This cave is not still growing but you enter three vast caverns and the stalagmites, flows tones and shawls are just stunning, this feels like it is the oldest caves as the formations are massive and you can see them really well as you are quite close to them. Some look like forests and others like coral on the sea bed, nature seems to grow in a similar way regardless of the location. Again this was a guided tour which is really good as they are able to turn the lights on and off to show the different colours and transparency of some of the formations, we also had a moment of complete darkness when all camera’s, lights and mobile phones were turned off – this was scary as you couldn’t see anything at all even after a while you eyes can never adjust to that kind of darkness. Having visited these three caves we then drove to the southern most tip of this part of Australia and the Cape Leeuwin lighthouse. This is Australias tallest mainland lighthouse and sits where the Indian and Southern Oceans meet. We booked on the tour to climb the lighthouse which is 176 original steps! The lighthouse was built in 1893 mostly through the winter and it wasn’t until 1982 that electricity came to the light, up until then the lighthouse keepers carried 20 litres of Kerosene to the top at the start of each shift. There were actually three lighthouse keepers and they worked 4 hours on and 8 hours off. They had to wind the light by hand for 20 minutes to get the weight to the top, this would then slowly descend and turn the light until it was time to start again. This mechanism was still in use until the mid 1990s and our guide said that one of the guides had worked in the lighthouse both before and after automation and he was one of the fittest people he had ever met, carrying 20kg 176 stairs every day and winding the handle to lift a 5 tonne weight for 20 minutes was obviously the best workout invented! I climbed to the top and went outside to get a view of where the oceans meet, Chris made it up the first two stages but the see through staircase was too much for him and he had to turn round which is a shame because he would have loved seeing the mechanism at the top although I doubt we would have got him out on the ledge at the top! It was really windy but stunning views, by the time we got back down it was pretty much time to head back to the hotel and have a bit of a relax / pack up before going out for something to eat and packing up as we head back to Perth tomorrow then onto the UK, how quickly three months goes by!
