Koala cuddling and caving
Trip Start
Feb 04, 2008
1
73
105
Trip End
Jan 19, 2009
Katoomba,
New South Wales,
Australia
Friday, July 11, 2008
We stopped at the Featherdale Wildlife Park on the edge of Sydney's western suburbs so that Debbie could cuddle a koala (They stink to high heaven by the way) and Will could be attacked by a small goat in the childrens petting zoo. It may have been a mere kid but it bit my chin - Ow!!
Also there was roo feeding, retching at the flying foxes (well Debbie did) and much hysterical laughing at the ridiculously fluffy chickens (again, mostly debbie).
Cute koala
That night we made it halfway into the hills (Woodford to be precise) and stayed at a free campsite called Murphys Glen.
NB. Whenever we refer to a 'free' campsite it means one which - is generally in a national park, you have to drive for ages down gravel tracks, up hills, down hills, through dried rivers, over fallen trees etc. to get to a spot that looks suspiciously like the carpark just of the main road at the entrance to the national park. Hmmm.
The next morning we headed deeper into the Blue Mountains. Our first stop of the day was at the magnificent Echo Point Lookout. Here were awesome views of the Jamison valley the surrounding mountains and Three Sisters - Rocky outcrop just beside the veiwpoint.
After taking it all in for a while (and trying to ignore everyone else. It was slowly getting busier and busier the further north we travelled) we carried on to Jenolan Caves.
To get to the carpark you actually have to drive through the cave itself which is a bit odd. Upon emerging on the otherside you are confronted by a massive visitors centre/hotel that looks like it's been borrowed from a swiss mountain side
Soft but stinky!
. It was a little bit of a tourist trap seeing as they run seperate guided tours (at $25-50 a pop) into each of their half dozen caves, which get sold out in advance during the day. So when we arrived at 2.30pm we had the choice of going on a tour at 4.30pm or heading back rendering a 4 hour round trip pointless.
Obviously we hung around for the 4.30pm tour which was of Chifley cave. It was quite impressive (the first cave in world ever to be lit by electric light don't you know) and the guide himself was excellent. Prior to the tour our ticket also enabled us to go on a self guided tour of Nettle cave. This was pretty good too and came with an extensive audio tour on one of those hand held thingamajigs (Debs and i aren't on the phone in all the pics!). The caves also had Stromatalites, the oldest living organisms on earth. It was pretty cool, i thought they only lived in the sea.
In conclusion it's definitly worth the drive (if you any interest in caves that is) just try and get there early or book ahead.
