Another cave day along the coast of WA

There are over 300 hundred limestone caves along this coastline in Western Australia. (WA)   And thank goodness we only went in to four of them.  Each of the four we went in to, was unique to itself.

Yesterday, we went into Mammoth Cave, so called because of the huge caverns in many sections.  This cave was unique in that it had prehistoric bones found amongst the rubble when the sinkhole or doline, fell in.

As we climbed out of the sinkhole, we could see across the hole, what we THOUGHT was a couple of tree roots that had been sheared off.  But it turned out to be beehives on the wall of the cave.

This particular one was elongated, but the other one (on the slideshow) looked like a root shorn off.  To my surprise, it wasn’t a tree root at all, but a hive.

 

We stopped here for morning tea.  The bees were swarming above us and the birds!,….well, there was so many of them singing.  But you couldn’t see them because the trees were so tall.

We stopped at Gracetown for lunch and it seems that we were in time to witness some dolphins on feeding frenzy for their lunch too.

The last cave for the day was Ngilgi Cave.  This one was the most rustic one as the steps went straight down.  And some of the steps were actual stone carved from what was there.

This part of the cave was noted for great acoustics in the large cavern.  We climbed down further into the cave bending twisting with the large limestone and granite walls.

 

This one known as the “Sheik’s tent” was a very fine display of the ribbon formation or shawl, as it’s called.

 

 

And once we got back out into the fresh air, we made our way back and came across one of the few blooms left for the season.  These banksias, were on display along the pathway.  One of the guides told us that this whole are is an explosion of colour during the month of October and that there’s a 135k walk down the coastline taking in all the wildflowers.  (Maybe another trip…)

Today, I woke up with my muscles aching, but it’s a pleasant ache.  And once they get warmed up again, I’ll be ready to take on the pier at Bussellton.  It’s said to be 1.8klm long,.. straight into Geographe Bay.