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Published: September 29th 2006
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Jenolan Caves
Some of the formations in one of the caves. Hello again; I have got my act together this week and not left it too long to update the blog! It has been a strange week with quite a few contrasts and we have now gone from city to outback again in the space of a few days. First of all, we were really saddened as always to read about the RAF Nimrod crash, especially as Rik had served on 2 Sqn with one of the aircrew, Sgt "Scouse" Langton; Scouse was a gunner in the Regt until last year when he retraded to Aircrew so it is really sad that he was killed. To all of you reading this that are still serving and out on det, keep safe.
Well, here goes. We left Bathurst and decided to go the scenic route via the Jenolan Caves. These caves were initially discovered in the 1800s and have been created by an underground river. They have never been able to accurately date the caves as they are constantly evolving with the water filtering through the land above, and they have no idea how long it takes to do this, but last month had dating confirmation of some fossils that had been found
Jenolan Caves
Formed by calcium. in one of the newly opened caves and they came back as over 340 million years old!! They are the oldest open caves in the world and we went on a little tour to see some of the tunnels and caves; a bit spooky and interesting to see all the old fashioned electrics and bulbs which were there from the old days! We got to the caves via a route which was "unsuitable for caravans and buses" which was hairy to say the least and we found ourselves on hair pin bends with flimsy little wooden barriers clinging to the sides! Still, we made it in and out in one piece and I could breathe a little easier. We then drove on to a place called Goulbourn (just another inland pioneer town) through a big forestry and logging area. It was a real shame to see the devastation of logging, but at least they replant trees constantly to keep the forests. It was while on this drive that we saw our first Echnida in the wild; very much like a hedgehog/porcupine (ie it has lots of spikes!!) but apparently they are not related. It was very shy and scared and
The Blue Lake
This is where the underground river from the caves opens into. buried its head in the straw when I tried to take a picture of it, but it was cute nontheless. The next day whilst we were driving to Canberra, we saw a hugh expanse of nothing called Lake George; it was marked as a lake on the map but according to locals has been bone dry since 1999. They are in the middle of their worst drought for 100 years and the signs of it are everywhere. Most caravan parks we stay in you are limited to 2 minute showers and they are desperately in need of water. They have just had their dryest winter since records began and the papers are full of gloom and doom for the summer. Although I know UK has been dry this year, especially the South East, we are so lucky to have a "green and pleasant land". There were some terrible bush fires around Sydney last week and apparently the bush fire season is starting early this year; makes us glad we are off to New Zealand at the end of October before the summer really starts.
Eventually we arrived in Canberra to the realisation that the annual Floriade festival was on (A
Echidna!
The shy echidna trying to hide in the straw. smaller version of the same festival in Holland) and there was no accommodation to be had anywhere! Luckily we managed to find a camp site for the night, although there were only 4 sites in Canberra and all were pretty dire. We managed to fit loads into our 2 days though including a visit to the Floriade, the National Museum of Australia (which was really, really good) and an amazing visit to CSIRO. This is the science research, discovery and development centre of Australia and we had the place to ourselves. Kiera picked it to go to out of all the museums and she was able to undertake experiments, including making cheese and acid/alkaline tests and also look at loads of things under powerful microscopes. Me & Rik are quite enjoying "getting educated" ourselves and what we don't now know about climate change/bio-diversity/salination etc etc is not worth knowing!!! Canberra is a very quiet, elegant city which is very modern in terms of buildings etc. Everything is laid out in axis, which makes it really interesting driving around. All of the embassies are amusing with most trying to outdo each other in terms of the buildings themselves; the Chinese embassy
Lake George.
An empty Lake George - maybe one day it will have water in again. is all pagodas, the Thai one is made of temples and the British one has a fully functioning Croquet Lawn in front of it with people actually playing. It was such a cliche, me and Rik were laughing our heads off, but it was good to see the massive Union Jack flying away. As per our new plans, we then headed inland to a place called Albury/Wodonga which is on the NSW/Victoria border. We are basically now following the Murray River which forms the border between the two states. We stayed in Wodonga for a couple of days at the Lakeside Caravan Park which bordered Lake Hume. Unfortunately Lake Hume is only at 25% capacity which meant the lakeside was rather a long walk - still, we walked to the waters edge across the cracked earth - not nice. The Lake was formed in 1956 by damming the river; they keep doing this in Australia but do not clear or cut down any of the trees and vegetation. As some of their trees can take over 100 years to rot, you are left with a landscape resembling something from a Hollywood Sci Fi set which does not make it very
Canberra
View of parliament house from the War Memorial. picturesque. Still, we had a nice time there and it gave Kiera the opportunity to make some friends as they are now all on school holidays. It was then on to Echuca where we treated ourselves to a beautiful "unit" for 3 nights as the weather forecast was not good. Luckily for us, after the first night the weather was back to beautiful and we had a lovely couple of days relaxing and wandering around. Most of the towns along the Murray River are old pioneer settlements and are very reminiscent of the american wild west so it has been a lovely contrast to what we've seen already. Old paddle steamers still cruise up and down the river, albeit for tourist purposes only now and there are still some pony and traps about. Our next stop was a place called Swan Hill which was "discovered" in 1896 by Major Thomas Mitchell. He named it after the water birds keeping him awake all night - nothing has changed! There is a lovely place called the Pioneer Settlement Museum here which we spent all day at yesterday, getting dressed in old clothes and riding round on the pony and trap! It took
The Floriade
Kiera poses with an unusual breed of cow! some persuasion to get Rik to dress up, hence he had no problem with the "solemn" photos! Part of the day included a trip on a paddle steamer up the river which was nice, but again sad to see that the river is 60% below capacity and the trees are falling into the river and the bank eroding.
Today we leave here, up the highway a bit and turn left to go across the desert like Mallee Highway. We are expecting it to be very arid, red and dusty and we shall take 1 or 2 days to get across to Southern Australia and back to civilisation. Take good care of yourselves and will update again next week sometime. xxxxxxx
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Shane
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Mate !!!
What have they done to you mate !!! I bet you have had to drink some 1664 to get over the trauma of that photo session. Hope all is going well, looking forward to catching up next year. Take it easy fella.