Up at 7am to a decent fog , not by Moss Vale standards , but by 10 am it had burnt off to get up to another 31degree day .
We chatted to Garry & Linda - as we tend to do - before Linda headed off to work , leaving us to chat for a bit longer to Garry before we got organised and headed off toward Rocky .
Todays little adventure would be Capricorn Caves - Mt Etna , we had been out here before , but hadn’t done the cave tour . Arriving just after 12 noon , tours start on the hour , so we had lunch in the picnic area outside . 1pm arrived and so did our guide , we were a small group of four , so that also worked in our favour , with the guide taking us through a couple of areas that you wouldn’t otherwise see in a large group .
This cave complex is different to all the others we have been in - it is a very dry cave system - water will drip down into the cave , usually only after rain . The exterior of the hill is like a moonscape with trees & vines growing from it . The limestone looks very eroded .
We wandered in and basically has the guide to ourselves , as the other two customers were from Poland - one could understand english and translated into Polish . The Polish words for bat guano are Bat Shit !!! - we all had a bit of a giggle . Our guide gave us the full run down on who discovered the caves , and owned them up until 1994 , The Olsens , a Norwegian family we think .
There were roots coming down from a fig tree perched high above us , with the roots going into any little crevice they could find , and emerging further down below us - seemingly splitting the rock as they came through it . An earthquake hundreds of years ago had exposed the main entrance to the caves due to the roof of the caves falling in .
They mined the bat poo for 3 or 4 years before being told to remove themselves , when one company decided to blow some holes in a wall for easier access to remove the fertiliser . The Olsens weren’t happy with that as they wanted the caves preserved . There are several bat colonies that call these caves home - usually more when it is more humid and moist - the summer months .
The formations aren’t as spectacular with the lack of constantly dripping water , but were still very interesting . There is a cathedral cave that gets used for weddings !!! It’s acoustics are really good , and they have an opera event coming up at the end of the month . Our guide gradually turned the lights right down as the music was playing to give us an idea just how dark it was in there - you could not see anything , and almost made you feel like going to sleep . The pioneers of this complex had a lot of hard work to map the caves with only ropes & candles - the candle went , you follow your rope back and relight the candle , then go back in - and all that time you were sloshing around ankle deep in bat poo !!
There were a few more sections to look at before our guide let us wander off into the zig zag tunnel , where we had to go sideways one way , then sideways the other , again and again , ducking to miss the overhead sections that were rather low , then reaching the end , and walking over two suspension bridges to get back outside - the bridges swung very well .
Our one hour tour was over & done , we thanked our guide , who also told us a bit about the cyclone clean up they had to do before they could reopen the caves .
Back into Rocky and checked out a huge camping store , before going back to the RV and having a beer with some chilli salsa & doritos , and watching the sun disappear over the horizon again .
Here’s todays map link :-https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=z1G8gwwxwyYo.k28AZ-30ikUQ
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