Day 71 Margaret River

The first thing we did in the morning was we drove to Lake Cave. We waited in the information center until our tour guide arrived and then we went down about 250 stairs into the cave. It had a lot of water in it and a boardwalk that went over the water. There were lots of stalactites on the roof and next to the boardwalk, there was 2 columns coming out of the roof. These are some of the 2 best columns in the world and they go from the roof down onto a platform that is suspended over the water with nothing underneath it. The next part was the most active bit in the cave with thousands of straws all in a single place on the roof. We then went to a spot where they turned all the lights off in the cave. It was completely pitch black and I couldn’t see my hand even when it was touching my face. When the lights came back on, they talked about how the water level in Lake Cave is the highest it has been in 70 years, and it will only stay this way for 2 weeks. It will take another 80 years to get this high again, so we were pretty lucky with the timing of visiting the cave. After we visited Lake Cave, we went to Mammoth cave. This cave was a self-guided tour, and we got these headphones connected to a device where it would tell you what number to put in and it would tell you about that section of the cave. We walked around a path that came up a ledge where you could see a tasmanian tiger jawbone in the rock. The walk kept going through the cave and at the end of it, we had to climb so high to get out. The cave is a big sinkhole where the ground level goes down about 70 meters in a hole and at the bottom of it on one of the walls, there is the entrance to the cave. In the big hole, there is a lot of green plants and trees in there and it is very humid. We came up the stairs and did a walk back that went through the forest and had heaps of wildflowers in different colours. There was also a river crossing that we had to do but it wasn’t that bad as there were big wooden stumps in the water positioned as stepping stones. The next cave we went to was called Jewel Cave and it was the biggest cave of the 3. It had an information centre which had a tunnel going underground which transitioned from concrete to rock as we went into the cave. This entrance was actually blasted into it as the original entrance was a small 2-meter-wide hole in the ground that went directly down into the roof of the cave. It had a walk going across a ledge with a massive drop on the right which was at least 200 meters deep. We went to a few platforms on the way, and we eventually got into the bottom of the cave. It had a big calcite formation that looked like a frozen waterfall which looked really cool. There was a long walk along the cave and the roof got pretty low, so we had to duck a bit. We got to the end bit and there was a piece of calcite on a pedestal which you could touch, and it felt pretty weird. They turned off all the lights again and it was completely black with not a single bit of light there. After that, we walked out of the cave and then left for the next place. The next place we went to was Cape Leeuwin. Cape Leeuwin is where the Southern Ocean and the Indian Ocean meet. It is also one of the most dangerous capes in the world with underlying rocks in the water for tens of kilometres in every direction. There was also a lighthouse there and it is the tallest lighthouse in WA and the third tallest in Australia. We climbed up so many stairs and got to the top of the lighthouse. It has the original lens still rotating at the top and they can’t make them anymore so if it breaks it’s really bad. You could see the gears turning the light and it was pretty good. We then came down the lighthouse and it was so windy. After that, though, we came back to the van and went to bed.

Some geodes growing on the end of some straws

Lake Cave with a light coming from the back of it

Mammoth Cave exit from regular ground level

The most active part of Lake Cave with thousands of straws

Lake Cave from the beginning

Some of the 2 best columns in the world with a suspended floor