Went on a tour of two of the caves at Jenolan yesterday. The price of $82 includes the 1 hour drive from Katoomba to the caves and back as well as admission to two of the caves. Only some of the caves are "show caves". A lot of the other caves are not open to the public or access is restricted. This is primarily because even just bringing people in causes some damage, even if the people are respectful and don't touch stuff or, even worse, break off pieces and take them home. They actually go and clean the caves on a regular basis, vacuuming up hair and skin and sometimes washing the limestone formations. The formations grow quite slowly, and of course can stop growing entirely if no water happens to be flowing in that particular area...
The caves themselves were pretty awesome. An entirely different world, with an unbelievable variety of shapes. Not just the standard stalagmites and stalactites, but things like ribbons (literally a wavy ribbon of limestone growing down from the ceiling) or even stranger shapes. I took a few pictures (see below) but much better pictures are available online. And again I got that same thought I had when I first went diving, that people who create movie sets get inspiration from places like this.
Each tour lasted 1.5 hours. The guide also talked about some of the early tours a century or so ago. People went in with nothing but candles. In one of the caves, there is a long slope. In times past, the tour guide would set the visitor on a potato sack and send them sliding down the slope with their candle. weeeee.... Then you had to climb back up along a rope. It is certainly a lot easier and less adventurous now. The routes are fitted with concrete steps and railings, totally safe (and also to keep the cave safe from the visitors).
The first picture is a little hole about half a meter across, with all these crystals growing inside.
The second picture is just plain cool...
The third picture shows some of the more random, interesting shapes. There was one area in particular which had a lot of these white sculpted shapes.
The fourth picture is a good example of how large some of these formations are.
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