Caves and Kangaroos

Only an hour away from Tumut where we are staying for one more day are the Snowy Mountains. They are a mountain range made of Karst rock which is pocketed with many caves. This is where we spent the day today. Another beautiful spot with barely any other people around despite the school holidays! We drove up past the lake/dam that we visited the other day and only another half an hour further and we were high enough to notice a diversity of plant life different than that lower down in the valley (gum and more gum) and road markers for visibility in heavy snowfall.

Abigail managed to score us a great affordable deal to have a swim in the thermal pools (a geothermal pool lower in the valley that is 27 degrees year round), a cultural guide with two local Aboriginal DOC workers and then on to a guided walk through a gorgeous cave.

Shane the cultural guide showed us how Aboriginal
would make fire with sticks
The Aboriginal park rangers who were from local tribes taught us how to make our own rope (which was really fun and easy using the inner bark of stringy gum) - a big hit with the kids; Ezra in particular - and explained about the didgeridoo - it's purposes and ways of making it sound. Traditionally this instrument was part of a right of passage for boys and so us girls weren't allowed to have a go at making a sound. But it was fun watching the boys try! The instructor showed us how the Aborigines used the Didgeridoo to immitate the sounds of the creatures and nature around them. It sounded so great! He could get out the noise of Dingos, Kookaburras, and Kangaroos and all using circular breathing.
Josh, Ezra and Dennis learning to play the didgeridoo

Not long after that we had our lunch on a little hill behind where this photo was taken and we came across a small family of Kangaroos also eating their lunch! They were not scared of us at all and stayed for a few hours there grazing next to us.


Small mountain Kangaroo that were grazing close by
while we were eating lunch



We then ventured on to the caves. The Jellabenan cave was filled ceiling to floor with the most beautiful coloured stalactites and stalagmites I've ever seen. They were all shades of peach, orange, pink, white and brown with a bit of grey added in too. The colours on the impressive spears come from the different soil that the water leaches through as the soil is various shades of orange to red. The grey and brown are added in when there has been a bushfire and the ash makes it's way into the cave too. It's amazing to see the different eras of time that are depicted in the colour scheme of the cave. The was one massive stalagmite that was cleanly sawn in two as it was in the middle of a pathway (done in the 1960's when there was a prison gang working in the caves to make it more user-friendly for tourists) which distinctly showed the different layers of time with colour.
 I also found out today that apparently you won't ever feel an earthquake underground though you may hear it. Just in case you were worried that a massive stalactite might fall on your head one day while wondering around one day!

Inside Jillabenan cave.

The view outside the cave

Oh, these photos are really not doing the scenery any justice at all! In that valley of the picture above the trees on the far side were great big majestic gums with stark white trunks and limbs seemingly growing directly out of the grey rock. The sparseness of the high-altitude forest here was stunning in the that trees all developed a beautiful wide structure and their colour tones against the Karst rock were stunning.

Fern and Davida in the thermal pool. Prisoners in the 1960's also built
this pool and the facilities.

The cousins had been having a little dance-off in this photo to 'Take on me' by Aha'
It's come back around!

Noa with the cowl on that Mum knitted.


Stalactites with coralloids (or cave popcorn) attached.
Those bumpy 'popcorn' shaped bits formed when those stalactites were under water.

Yarrrangobili Caves walkway in the Kosciuszko National Park

This was the hole at the top on an entrance way to a cave called the Glory cave
that we didn't go in. This overhang was enormous! And walking up to it one can feel the temperature
in the air drop by about 10 degrees.

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