Weekend Walks
weekend walks: inside jenolan caves
Weekend walk took us indoors this week, inside caves! Actually, the initial plan was to do the Jenolan River Walk and see the Blue Lake in the Greater Blue Mountains region (which is a UNESCO Heritage Site). So after driving 2.5 hours, we arrive to find that the walk is closed for maintenance. The most of the Blue Lake we got to see was up above from the road.
Luckily, Plan B was not a bad plan at all. Plan B was to visit Jenolan Caves themselves. The tours of the caves last about 1.5 hours and range in levels of fitness/difficulty. We elected to join the Orient Cave tour which is considered one of the top 10 most beautiful caves in the world! There was no way, we were missing that one. Not that we have seen the other top 10 contenders, but we certainly rate this one incredible!
Inside the caves, there are crystals: millions and millions of crystals. There were stalactites (those formed from the ceiling down), there was stalagmites (those formed from the ground up) and there were helictites (those that changed directions as they form). It was a crash course for us in basic geology and cave formation.
An extremely fascinating (and almost unfathomable) fact was that sometimes 1 cubic centrimetre of these formations can take up to 300 years to form, so…. given “that” and after some calculations, the Jenolan Caves are about 340 million years old, making them the world’s oldest caves! (Well, actually, we didn’t do the maths, it was already done).
As we pass through the caves, the water overhead drips, we can hear it and see it. Crystal is forming as we walk! From the photos, the surfaces looks almost waxy. We also managed to see a flowing stone as we entered.
The Orient Caves contained a Persian Chamber, an Egyptian Chamber and an Indian Chamber. Looking around, it felt like we were in another dimension or on another world. It is so utterly unusual and intriguing. Some of the formations are given names or descriptions for orientation.
(1) Example of “shawls” – these are two alongside one another. The one on the right is what crystal looks likes after water over times flows over the limestone: it is white, translucent white. The one on the left is crystal formed from dirty/contaminated water.
In general, the brown streaks through the formations are from iron in the water.
(2) Pillar of Hercules – found in the Persian Chamber, stands at about 8 metres tall.
(3) The Dome – found in the Persian Chamber, approximately 40 metres high
(4) The pilgrims – found in the Persian Chamber, “walking” up a hill
(5) Little crystals formed in water
(6) Egyptian Blanket and curtains – found in the Egyptian Chambers
(7) The Frozen Nile – also found in the Egyptian Chambers. The white dots on the far right of the picture are the sparkles of the light hitting the crystals.
(8) Elephant Headress, found in the Indian Chamber.
(9) Medusa, looking down with a headful of snakes.
Jenolan Caves are such a delight to visit. We are curious and keen to go back – more so as with each ticketed tour purchased, the visitor receives a ticket which entitles them to get 50% off any other cave tours that they do with the year (BONUS 🙂 )
We really do take our hats off for those explorers who were so brave in venturing into such unknown territories (with only candles and naked flame as their source of light) to discover such beauty and even more so to those in 1867, who gazetted the area as a reserve! Thank you to those people with such foresight to protect such beauty so we can enjoy it today!
Greater Blue Mountains were UNESCO Heritage listed in 2000. To see the other UNESCO sites we have visited, visit our unofficial bucket list
NB: This was not a sponsored post – we visited on our own accord.
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weekend walks: centennial parklands
We woke up early on Sunday morning to get to Centennial Parklands for a quick walk around the ponds. And to all bird lovers out there, it was sensational.
The air was really crisp, the sky was cloudy and there were a few people out for the morning run. But what blew us away was that there were birds everywhere! In fact, the first birds we came across were a brace of ducks crossing the road in front of us.
As we walked, we saw a walking track amongst some trees and decided to detour. Looking up and all we saw were bats overhead. Yikes, all hanging upside down in the trees or swooping overhead.
Hope you enjoy our photos for this weekend walk.
Disclaimer: We only took our compact camera (as per usual for our walks) so shutter speed and zoom was not the best for capturing birds 🙂
We wish you all a lovely week ahead!
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weekend walks: lake parramatta reserve
After what seemed like an extraordinarily long week, the weekend was finally here. This week’s walk was just a relatively short one compared to last week.
Lake Parramatta is about 20 minutes west of Sydney. The Lake Circuit is about 4½ km and took us about 2 hours – there were two easier, shorter walks but we opted for this one to break in our new hiking boots 🙂 It wasn’t a hard walk, it was just that we wandered off track occasionally for photo opportunities or just for the mere exploration factor.
We were graced with the presence of plenty of birds, insects and reptiles, fortunately none of the reptiles were snakes. And we saw mushrooms – lots and lots of mushrooms: from brown ones to yellow ones to bright fluoro orange ones.
This was the first of our weekend walks where we had to cross creeks or streams – really putting the new shoes to the test!
Although immersed in nature on this walk, the sounds of humankind is not far off. Competing with the trees rustling and birds squawking are the loud rumbles of planes overhead or the engines of cars passing on the main road nearby. Sadly, the sound of nature does get drowned out often. There is a spell of silence about half way in the walk where the tracks goes a little further from the main roads which made the walk much more pleasant!
Despite our ears not really feeling like we had escaped the city, our eyes were fortunate enough to enjoy the view of our surrounds.
Wishing everyone a happy Sunday!
Hope you have a great week ahead 🙂
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weekend walks: coogee to bondi
A sunny and warm autumn day called for us to visit the beach. So we chose to walk from Coogee to Bondi and back – totalling about 12 km all up!
The conditions were perfect for our weekend walk along the Eastern Coast which took us from Coogee to Clovelly to Bronte onto Tamarama before ending up on world famous, Bondi Beach! The walk took us up some steep inclines and steps but the view compensated for any pain we felt at times!
To finish off the walk, we met a Blue-Tongued Lizard – we had SO hoped to capture his blue tongue for the post but unfortunately he became very camera shy! And for the record, his tongue is very blue!
wise monkeys abroad 