Sept 18 - Caves and Pubs

Rolled out of bed at about 9 today and had the usual cereal and tea breakfast. I've come down with a bit of a cold, so tea is always a good choice to help the sinuses and throat. Had a wonderful, very hot shower and then bit the 86 dollar bullet to go to the Jenolan caves. We took a bus from next to the train station to Scenic World to transfer to a second bus. Scenic World has a gondola that goes over the valley to the cliffs on the other side, a restaurant and other misc stuff. However, a couple of the staff stay at our hostel and consider Scenic World an amusement park with rides. The gondola equates to a ride in this little town apparently. Anyhow, we transfer here to a 2nd bus which drives us an hour and a bit to the caves.

The ride was cool, going through Katoomba, then the little mountain villages east of it, then through open fields with rolling hills and cattle grazing, then through narrow, winding roads cut through cliffs. The last part reminded me of Golden, BC, but the road often got down to one lane through the mountain pass, which is dodgy as hell when passing other vehicles whilst in a bus. Regardless, we eventually got to the tourist trap town that was built by the cave system. Had a Banff type feel. B and I bought passes for the Orient cave, while the rest of the bus passengers were going on the cheaper Lucas cave tour. The Orient cave is rated one of the top ten prettiest crystal caves in the world, so I was eager to see inside. We had about an hour to kill before the tour embarked, so we explored the free cave area and hiked through the valley trail awhile. I don't think a lot of trails here are loops like the ones in Canada, they just sort of go on forever, then you have to turn back and cover all the same ground. There are also rarely signs with maps of the trail or "you are here" type of info in relation to the hike. So after doubling back to the start, we met up with our guide for the caves and the other people taking the Orient tour. We had to hike up a bunch of steps and sort of around the side of the mountain to the main entrance, then go through a series of big steel doors. Apparently the doors preserve the integrity of the environment inside. After a long tunnel and several doors, it opened into a little chamber with some crystals and limestone. The guide gave us probably a 20 minute speal about rocks, geology, the caves, the people who discovered them, etc. Then we got to proceed to the first main chamber, named Persia because the crystal formations look like Persian rugs. The chamber is pitch black, but the guide hit a switch and tons of lights came on and lit up the cave nicely. Great photo ops and more information from the guide, then on to the next chamber, India. This name had something to do with the formations also but I can't remember what it was exactly. There were such a variety of crystal formations, some white, lots tinged brown from iron in the rock, some just budding and look like frost in a freezer, others look like massive icicles, with stalactites and stalagmites galore. Then came lower India which was like upper but further down in the cave, with a pool of water in the base that had seeped through all the chambers and collected. Then we headed back out the way we came in, got back on the bus and back to Katoomba. It was worth the money in my opinion, and a very cool world I'd never experienced before.

For supper, we finally fired up a decent meal of souvlaki, rice and cheese buns. Hit the spot. After dinner there were new guests in the common room from Woodstock Ontario, and we chatted with them for at least an hour. They were retired and travelling Oz for a bit before their daughter's wedding in the Gold Coast. The guy was a union rep and service employee for GM and dealt with all the restructuring, layoffs and salary/benefit renegotiations after the bankruptcy then retired. He talked a bunch about the company and how it worked and how they moved around employees to different plants so each would falsely appear efficient and thus earn the managers their bonuses. Learned a lot about the inner workings that only someone who had been through that all could shed light on.

After the chat, me, B and two young Brits who have been here since yesterday all headed to the pub for a couple pints and some chit chat. There were 2 live guitarists playing cover songs and we had a great time. Booze in bars is also pricey. Looking at 6 bucks minimum for a beer or drink and up from there. A Long Island Iced Tea was $14; I didn't order it, but it was on the menu for that. Then had a real nice long chat back in the common room with a lady from Dublin who is working in Sydney. It's now 1:27 AM, officially the latest I've been up since arriving in Australia, and thus also time for bed, since no one else is awake now.