Caves have always been intriguing to the imagination. Owing to this fact, as soon as I heard about Careys cave near Canberra, I quickly planned a trip with my friends to explore the place. The cave is in Wee Jasper, which is a town at a 1.5 hours' drive from Canberra.
The drive is through the countryside along a windy road and is exciting with splendid views.
By the time we reached Careys Cave, we were quite hungry, however, all we could find was a small shop with snacks, including chips, ice cream and drinks. Since we arrived at 12.20 pm, we had to wait until 1.30pm for the next tour to start. We bought tickets which cost $16.50 for students. We bought some snacks and walked around the place since there was some time left for our tour to start.
As we hiked up the rocky terrain through long weeds, we saw various holes that looked like small caves but were too small to go into.
holes
After exploring the area, we went back to the cave entrance. The tour started at 2 pm instead of the scheduled time of 1 pm. Even though it was around 27 degrees outside, it was 15 degrees inside the cave, hence we were advised to take something warm with us. There were 20 other people who were taking the tour with us. An elder man, who was our guide for the day, started with the history of the cave before leading us inside.
cave entrance
As we headed inside, we had to first descend a short flight of stairs. As we reached the bottom, the guide lighted up different parts of the cave with a torch to show us different formations.
limestone formations
The second part of the tour consisted of all the visitors being seated in a room while the guide used candles to demonstrate how our eyes start to see the colours of the cave walls when it's dark. After that, he then led us to an area where we could hold and touch a diverse range of rocks.
We were told that the tour was of 1 and a half hours, however, it took more than 2 hours to finish the tour. Even though the tour guide imparted information interestingly, it was too much time spent on a cave tour. We had planned to do other activities in Yass Valley but since it was already 4.20 pm, we headed back to Canberra. It was a day well spent.
