Capricorn Caves

On Friday of last week, David and I took a little day trip to Rockhampton- a town about an hour and a half north of Gladstone.  Yes, I live in a town small enough that it sometimes requires driving 1.5 hours to get some closer to semi-decent shopping.  And even then, it's still questionable.  At any rate, we also took a couple hours to visit Capricorn Caves (about 15 minutes from Rockhampton). 

This was a really neat little place to visit.  As part of your entrance fee, you get a one hour guided tour of the caves.  It was really interesting to hear their history.  It's almost unbeliveable to think that they were formed waaaaayyyy back when Australia was still beneath the ocean. Because of this, the caves themselves have lots of marine and coral reef fossils in them.  One of the reasons we had been wanting to visit the caves is because if you visit during December or January (summer here) and go on the 11:00 AM tour on a sunny, clear day, there is a part of the cave that allows the Summer Solstice sunlight through tiny openings to supposedly create what looks like an amazing light show.  It was sunny when we left for our trip, but as we drove, it became overcase.  So unfortunately, we didn't get to see the Summer Solstice light show.  You can see pictures of what we missed here.  Maybe next December/January...

Entrance to the caves.  In the photo on the right, you can see what look like long ropes.  These are actually tree roots!  It was crazy, because the roots can be hundreds of feet long and go through the rock (you can see them coming through the ceilings in many parts of the caves). 

 

 

 

 

After walking through this narrow part of the cave, we arrived at a really neat "room" in the caves that they have made into a church-like setting that they call the Cathedral Cave. 

 

This photo I got of the Cathedral Cave is not very good, but you can see more pictures of it here.  It really is beautiful. 

 

Supposedly the acoustics here are better than the Sydney Opera House.  They even have Opera performances down here throughout the year.  Oh, and you can get married in the Cathedral Cave!  At this point in the tour, the guide talks about how this part of the cave has absolutely zero access to light from above.  The guide makes sure know one will have a freak out attack if she shuts off all the lights and candles.  It is seriously creepy how dark it is. You can wave your hand in front of your face and see nothing.  No matter how long you tried to let your eyes adjust, you still would not be able to detect any light.  Luckily that didn't last for long. :-)

 

This fun bridge was the way out of the caves.