Jenolan Caves

Friday after school, we drove about 7 hours (including a stop for dinner) to a place in the Blue Mountains called Jenolan Caves (pronounced Ja' nolan).  We stayed two nights in a two bedroom cottage.  The cottage was a bit dated and only had rain water so drinking water had to be boiled.  There was eight cottages in the same place and a nice playground and some outdoor barbeques.  As we were driving to the cottages late Friday night, we actually saw an echidna crossing the road.  Echidnas are very rare and difficult to find.  It was neat to actually see a wild one and one that was not sleeping.  Typically in zoos, they are asleep. 
We awoke Saturday morning to find more wildlife.

The kangaroos would hop a bit away if the kids ran through or made too much noise.  However, if you were quiet and slow moving, then the roos didn't hardly move. 
The kids really enjoyed the playground for the little bit that they got to play on it.  It was raining Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday. 
Anyway, after breakfast, we drove the last 8km to Jenolan Caves.  You actually drive through a cave to get to the Jenolan Cave House.

This place is a hotel, restaurant, etc.  The ticket office is near it as well.  You drive past it just a bit for parking.  It was built in 1898, after the original buildings were partially destroyed by fire.  The caves have been a popular tourist destination since the 1860's.  Original tours were done by candle light.  Electric lights were finally installed in 1887.  In some of the caves, you can see where early tourists wrote their names in candle smoke on the cave walls or ceilings. 
Our first tour of the day was to the Orient Cave.  It is an awesome cave, filled with fancy formations.

Pictures may be worth a thousand words, but these pictures are nothing compared to the real thing! 
After the Orient, we did the self guided tour of the Devil's Coach House and the Nettles Cave.  Each of us had a little handset to listen on.  The kids got to listen to a special kids version while we had the grown up tour.  It was a very enjoyable tour and the kids asked to do it again and again. 
After the self tour, it started to rain.  We had to eat our picnic lunch in the car and then had to kill a little time before our next tour.  We drove out to Kanangra Wall, but it was too rainy and foggy to see anything.  We drove back in the pouring rain and had to park and walk through the pouring rain to our next tour.  We were all a little wet as the umbrellas didn't keep us dry.  Poor Jay had no umbrella so he was completely soaked and quite a bit cold on the next tour. 
The Lucas Cave has some very vast chambers.  They even hold concerts in one of the chambers! 

This is my favorite picture from the Lucas Cave.  Unfortunately, we were in a large group and I was near the back.  The guide was trying to move us through quickly and was dimming lights by the time I would try to take pictures of stuff.  The Lucas Cave is the most popular and most visited cave in the park. 
Rain made us change our Sunday plans so we went back to the Caves and booked the Imperial Diamond tour. 

This is the River Styx. 

This is the Gem of the West. 
We had a great time and can't wait to go back and visit some more caves.
I posted many more pictures on Facebook if you are interested in seeing more pictures.