The Caves of Margaret River

The first cave we visited was run by the

ministry of the environment. We were given

helmets to wear because of low ceilings and

tight squeezes which Terry handled amazingly

considering her fear of tight spaces.There

were beautiful stalactites. Next was Mammoth

cave a self guided cave. There were many

different amazing formations of calcite that

reminded us of a cathedral.There were even

visible fossils in some rocks formations.There

was a hole that people could repel into from

above. It was a huge cave with many

interesting areas, some very low tunnels

connecting to large caves. The cave was 42

meters deep. After this we went to Lake Cave.

The entry had caved in thousands of years ago

so there were more then 750 steps to descend

into this cave. Inside, there was the least to

explore of all of the caves, but a

magnificent twin columned table hung from the

ceiling, this was suspended over a shallow

lake and caused a reflection of the structure

from different areas of the cave. They did a

light show from the far end of the cave that

was mind blowing! The last cave was Jewel.

This had formations of different colours

caused from tannins in the calcite. Tannin is

stain from rotting vegetation. There was a

structure that looked like a waterfall,one

like a pipe organ, another that looked like a

Karri forest and finally the jewel case where

the caves gets it's name. The jewel case's

shapes and beauty was really beyond

description. Terry and Wes