The second half of the expedition was a trip to the Jenolan Caves, farther into the Blue Mountains. The entrance was rather impressive, the road through to the main parking lot and lodge easily fit the tour bus. There are twelve "show" caves for touring in this area.
There's a grand old hotel near the caves, the tour group had a little bit of time to have lunch and wander around the area topside before touring Lucas Cave.
There's a gorgeous blue lagoon near the entrance to the caves, and apparently there's a family of platypus living there.
Sadly, I didn't see any wildlife, but the lagoon itself was lovely.
It gets its color from limestone particles floating in the water.
The lagoon was created in 1908 to generate hydro-electric power. The area had previously been a swamp.
I wandered around the exterior for awhile, taking pictures before it was time for the tour.
The entrance to one of the other caves.
Looking up from the road pictured at the beginning of the blog.
Hey, look, another cave entrance!
Soon it was time for the tour of Lucas Caves, which is probably the most impressive cave system I've ever had the pleasure of wandering through.
Looking back down toward the road on the way into the caves.
One last glimpse of the lagoon through the trees.
Stubborn tree growing through rock is stubborn.
The limestone here is turning to crystal in places, there are curtains, shawls, columns, stalactites, stalagmites, and straws in the pictures that follow, and they're red, white, or pink depending on mineral deposits that the water drips through on its way down. Not pictured: I saw a bat in one of the caverns!
We were warned multiple times not to touch the rocks - the oils from the touch of a hand would disrupt the formation of stalagmites and turn the rock black, as pictured below.
This is not a picture of the inside of my pocket. In one of the massive caverns, the guide turned off all of the lights, and the two tiny pinpricks of light that you can see in this are natural light seeping in from the original entrance to these caves, very far above my head.
The ladders are used by maintenance to replace the lights in the cavern. The ladders in this and other pictures also give a sense of the scale in this place.
Ribbon formations, if you want to be technical. Bacon formations, if you want to be not technical.
If I recall correctly, this pool was about 30 meters (100 feet) below where I was standing, and the water was so clear you could still see right through it to the bottom.
At the very end of the tour, there was this bit with colored lights. Which, while vaguely pretty, detracted from the jaw dropping beauty of what was already there.
There was a little waterfall at the exit to the caves.
Not far from the caves on the bus ride back, a wallaby ran across the road, and we stopped to take a few pictures. Er, the fuzzy rat looking thing, there, is a wallaby. Much cuter in person.
I took a few pictures from the bus on the way back.
The tour bus dropped us back in the city about an hour after we were scheduled to get back, so I again had a mad dash to get to the show, Jumpy, that I was seeing that night at the opera house. I did manage to get there in time again (hooray!). I was not, however, a huge fan of the show (boo!). The staging was very clever, all of the set pieces were on tracks and at times quite literally pushed the lead through the space in between scenes. The cast was fine, but the script never said anything new or interesting about midlife crises of the comfortably upper middle class. The characters mostly came across as a bunch of one-dimensional clichés making bad decisions and then whining about them. In the second act there was a completely unnecessary bit with a gun, and the blank fire was shot directly into the audience, at my section, and I became even less of a fan of the show. It was a pity, really, a lot of wasted potential.
After the show, because I was a adult person celebrating a milestone birthday, I, um, ordered room service and watched the new Muppet movie.
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