The Okuda Family

After leaving the Jenolan Caves we continued south without a specific destination in mind hoping to find somewhere to stay and then head back to Cairns along the coast.  We got some information form an information booth (go figure) about another set of caves called the Wombeyan Caves on a nasty narrow windy “disgusting” dirt road that we should avoid.  It was also a shortcut back east toward the coast, cutting off a long trip south through Goulburn.  Tough choice.

The road to the Wombeyan Caves was actually not bad, and paved, and we finally saw our first wild Kangaroos in the nearby campground.  We didn’t even bother with the caves for reasons I forget, but perhaps we were caved out.

So back to the road.  We found the nasty narrow windy (steep canyon) road we should avoid, just before realizing that we were almost out of gas.  Almost exactly halfway between the two nearest gas stations, at either end of the road, our fuel light came on.  Oops.

We immediately programmed the Tom Tom GPS to navigate us to the nearest gas station.  It was really only helpful at keeping us informed of exactly how far we would have to walk if we ran out of gas.  We were in the middle of nowhere and only saw one other car on the road… and our cell phone did not work.  We saw some cars on the side of the road, but I don’t think the wreck down the ravine was going to help us at all.

The drive was actually pretty cool, and I recommend it for anyone with enough fuel.  We were a bit busy freaking out about the gas to notice much.  In the image above you can see one end of a tunnel carved through the rock.

The excitement as we reached the end of the gravel road was exciting.  We were still 5km away from the gas station, but the probability of cell coverage and other cars was increasing.

If getting to the end of the gravel was exciting – pulling into the petrol station was relieving.  If the fuel needle had gone any lower it might have bent against the bottom of the dial.

We spent the night in the nearby town of Mittagong before heading back to Sydney the next day. 

When we returned to Sydney, Matthew achieved his goal of seeing the Sydney Opera House up close.  He plans to build a model of it with Lego, but the project is still in the preliminary design phase.

Tomorrow Brisbane.

It was suggested we visit the Jenolan Caves by an attendant at Echo Point, so we did.  The entrance to the parking and hotel is through the cave above.  I can’t say I have ever driven through a natural cave.  A bit narrow, but high enough for a bus to get through.

The cave system is varied.  Some, like the one above, are huge caverns with multiple trails up the sides and routes through the rock to get to different vantage points.  You can see the walking path at the bottom to get an idea of the scale.

The photo above is a bit surreal and I couldn’t help but include it.  Take a close look at the stairs visible at both the top and bottom of the photograph.  Yes, they are part of the same path.

To access the smaller caves we purchased a guided tour.  They are very sterilized, like the Waitomo caves in New Zealand, with good lighting, railings, and cement stairs to provide the utmost security and spelunking safety.  They even went so far as to carve a tunnel straight through the mountain to access the cave so no one was inconvenienced too much by walking over the hill.

To be fair, the tour took us down into some spectacular caves with cool mineral formations

We liked it so much went back to the Jenolan Caves the next day to do our self-guided tour that was included with our tour purchase.  If we had more time we would have tried some of there more adventurous (helmet required) tours.

Even outside the caves there is stuff to see.