Capricorn Caves

Wednesday 19th July

On the way to Mackay, we saw a turn off for the Capricorn caves, a cave system discovered by a Norwegian guy in the late 19th Century. Amazingly, he explored and mapped every single part of the caves with just a candle, pencil and paper so we decided it was worth the 2 hour detour. As we arrived, we saw a kangaroo zooming through the park which sent Babett into spasms of delight and so we spent a few minutes zooming around trying to get a photo.

Finding the reception area to buy a ticket was trickier than expected as everywhere seemed bereft of staff and there were more than a few people hanging about apparently aimlessly. Eventually spotting a guide, we managed to get onto the 11am showing, but only just! The downer was that our tour was going around with a bunch of teenage American school kids – loud and squalling brats as the stereotype demands! I was gutted. It turned out that the kids were on an exchange here in Australia on a programme started by Dwight. D. Eisenhower who felt it’d be a great idea for kids of school age to broaden their horizons and see the world, making friends and what not. A worthy ideal I thought but the lass who was giving an introduction was hilarious, not remembering if they’d been to Sydney and then remarking, ‘Oh yeah, the Capital’, without a trace of irony! I felt it would be a long couple of hours.

Wowser - check out the roots on that!

The caves themselves were pretty easy to navigate, the walkways and caverns large and airy. The most impressive thing was that the tree’s which grew on the surface had, over time, sunk their roots far down through the cracks in the limestone in their search for water. This, coupled with rain and the passage of time, had forced open and formed the caves we were now in. We were led through a few different areas before being taken to an area called the ‘cathedral’.



The Cathedral... this is the 'Altar' bit

Apparently, this place is quite popular for weddings and when we saw the ‘cathedral’, I could see why. It was formed almost perfectly like a small church with a soaring roof. The Trust had placed in benches and some candles and some rudimentary carpentry at the front end did for an altar. Our guide turned out the lights and the darkness was total, which I felt must’ve given the room a brilliant look in candlelight. It also bore reminder to the achievement of the Noggy who explored all the systems with just a candle. Despite the predictable puerile squalling of some of the girls in the group, the feeling was one of calm and serenity. Our guide was going to play some music to demonstrate the musical effects of the cave but a surprise was that some of the school kids offered to get up and sing. I was pretty sceptical but I have to take my hat off to the girls, they were amazing, especially the girl who sang on her own. It turned out this was the chic who thought ‘...Umm, Sydney, oh yeah, the Capital’, but although she’s obviously a Geography flunkie, her singing was excellent. It impressed me also that they were confident enough to get up and sing in front of a bunch of strangers but it was no less enjoyable for that. Afterwards, the guide played ‘Amazing Grace’ and it was beautiful – the cavern certainly had some excellent acoustic qualities. The entrance fee was worth those 10 minutes alone and I left feeling quite chipper. As a final bonus, we were offered the chance to climb through a couple of sections ourselves before leaving and of the 4 choices, the 4th was a short but tight corkscrewing section just next to the exit. I think it was called the blowhole or something, but really it should’ve been called the ‘nutcracker’ as I think any bloke over 5’8” was going to get ‘kissed’ between the legs!