7th Jan - Margs Caves - Lighthouse

We had a great day today, got the pass for all 3 caves, Mammoth, Lakes and Jewel plus Cape Leeuwin Light house, works out cheaper to get an all in pass.   Mammoth a self guided tour with individual MP3 audio players with commentary.  We were excited to be entering our first WA cave, when my Darl realized he locked the keys in the car, with a look of horror…..  Don’t worry bout it now I said let’s just enjoy the cave and work it out later.

All set to go....

Eerie.........Mammoth Cave

Lucky Ling had left her window down a couple of inches and it took a good 15 minutes to break in, Darl must be losing his touch…..

Go Darl!!

From here we went to Lakes cave – features include descending into the doline where the cave has collapsed leaving a gaping hole lined with Karri trees, limestone cliffs and weathered stalactites, and here also is the “suspended table” and numerous cave’s reflections in the underground lake.  Next was Jewel Cave, the largest show cave in WA and home to one of the longest straw stalactites found in any tourist cave in the world.  We've learnt about stalactites, stalamites, straws, shawls, cascades etc.  They estimate it takes 100 years for straws to grow 1 cm, just how old are these caves??   The days drive took us through the Karri forests, growing to 40 metres tall.

Suspended Table - Lake Caves

Forest along drive to caves

One of the early visitors to the Jewel cave, when there was water

Stalactite - Jewel Cave

We ended the day with a walk to top of the tallest lighthouse on mainland Australia at Cape Leeuwin, situated at the furtherest South West point of Australia and at the meeting point of two oceans, the Indian and the Southern.  8000kms to South Africa and 4,500 kms to the south pole.  The lighthouse’s 1000 watt, 120 tungsten lamp flashes every 7.5 seconds with a warning light that is visible from over 47 kilometres on a clear night.

What the hell is a cow doing at a Lighthouse???

Almost forgot about the water wheel, built back in 1800's to supply water for building of the lighthouse and then to supply the light house keepers' residences.  Fed by a natural spring down the hill into a trough, through the water wheel, piped to a windmill that pumped the water to the Cape, or something like that.   Anyway the main structure still stands today, although looking a little worse for wear...