Robot Claw

We returned to the caves this morning to visit the ‘cathedral cave’ which is the other they currently run tours through. This is the more famous cave, and we had high hopes.

We weren’t disappointed: it was just as breathtaking as yesterdays! It’s a very different cave, with much fewer stalagmites and stalactites but what it does have is enormous and the cave itself is massive.

It has three levels, each of which the guide took us through in order and at the deepest point we were about 45 m underground, which is about the height of a 10-story building.

Unlike yesterday’s cave this one shows evidence of human visits through the years via graffiti written in lamp or candle spot. Most are simple initials, and one is dated 1872 and looks like it could have been written yesterday. There are a few locations that were once painted (probably to amuse tourists) and the ‘pulpit’ on the large ‘cathedral’ stalagmite has a rotted Bible on top – a relic left after the last cave mass, which was held in 1966.

We spent a good hour inside and I liked how it was a very different experience from yesterday’s cave. These two are part of a 42-cave family and they used to have a third open for tours (The Phosphate Mine) which has been closed for years due to toxic gasses inside.

I’ve been to many caves in several countries and I’d have to say both of these at Wellington are amongst – if not the – most spectacular. They were absolutely worth the trip!

Oh and the snake warning was present for this tour as well. Our guide said they’d seen a black snake behind this seat a few weeks ago and it ‘took a snap’ at another guide! Watch for nasty snakes if you’re ever in the area 🙂

We woke early today in the hope we could visit a fire tower about an hour away from Coonabarabran. It was dark, and aside from trees looming over the road all we saw were endless clouds of bugs as we drove through them. Day dawned and we were forced to turn back due to a closed (dirt) road and once we got a chance to inspect the car bumper we saw this:

I think they’re mosquitoes!

We stopped at a few antique and op-shops along the way, but today’s goal was Wellington Caves which we reached about noon. Neither of us had done much research to preserve the surprise, and didn’t even know there were two caves. We bought tickets for one tour, and will do the other tomorrow.

The caves have been known for about 150 years, and in the late 19th century bones of megafauna were discovered inside. This included a diprotodon skull, which was a mammal about as big as a hippo and distantly related to a koala. The skeleton in the on-site gallery is shown next to a wombat for scale.

The cave entrance is about a half kilometer’s walk from the visitors center, and we got the usual safety spiel in advance from our guide ‘Westy’. Notable was the mention of snakes, including if we saw a brown snake (a man-killer) on the path to the cave the tour would be canceled and we’d receive a refund! Luckily, none were seen, although we did see a shed snakeskin.

The cave we toured today – Gaden cave – was incredibly abundant with ‘cave coral’. It was just Sue and I on the tour, and our guide was personably and knowledgeable and we spent almost an hour viewing the cave and hearing his stories.

Unlike every other cave I’ve visited this is a dry cave – which means no water or humidity – with a constant temperature of about 17 C. It was extremely pleasant inside, and you could probably comfortably live there!

Almost every wall was covered with stalactites and coral-like growths and they filled the vaulted roof high above us as well. Since there’s no water the cave is no longer ‘growing’ and these formations are as they were hundreds of millions of years ago.

It was beautiful and awe-inspiring and exceeded both of our expectations. This is apparently the lesser of their two caves, so we can’t wait to see the other one tomorrow!

Today Sue and I headed for the Warrumbungle Mountains. This was no small drive, and took us through many small rural towns along the way.

Muswellbrook, Scone, Murrurundi: names I’ve known since my childhood and have rarely (ever?) visited. The above is silo art right in the center of the small town of Quirindi; the last town before we turned west for Coonabarabran.

This leg took us along a straight road through cotton fields for over 80 kilometers. We saw cows and kangaroos, but almost no other vehicles. It was a lovely drive with iconic Australian rural scenery including a massive heard of cattle tended by actual stockmen (or ‘cowboys’) on horseback!

We made it to Coonabarabran then continued west a bit to visit our goal: Siding Spring Observatory. This is a complex of telescopes in 18 different buildings, built at this location over 60 years ago since this is one of the darkest parts of Australia. We checked out the visitors center (Sue had a muffin, I played a cocktail cab version of Terra Cresta) and then joined the last tour of the day into the large telescope in the big building in the above pic (I knicked from Wikipedia).

The tour was great, and our guide was an enthusiastic astronomer with decades of experience. The telescope we saw has a 4 meter mirror, is two stories high and for many years was the foremost tool to survey southern skies. When first installed the images were captured optically on photographic plates, but now the very same telescope is used for computer assisted astronomical spectrography and the photographic methods are no longer used.

Our tour took us into the telescope room as well as up on the gantry closer to the motto and even outside on the catwalk surrounding the dome. Although it was cold and very windy, the views from up there were stunning:

The tour was an hour and we loved it. Absolutely worth doing if you visit here. As a special bonus the site is full of kangaroos and we saw many of them hopping around. How many can you see in this pic:

The rains came in as we left, and mostly for lack of options (this is a small country town after all) dinner was at a Chinese restaurant far better than we expected:

On the short drive back to the motel we noticed Coonabarabran is a dark town, with almost no street lights and very little illumination at all. This is to help the telescope, but it’s a little eerie to witness. It may be the case most country towns are like this, and I’ll find out tomorrow on the second day of this road trip…