South West Life

With hundreds of caves along the coast, the south west offers a range of amazing tours that will take you underground into a very different world of dark caverns with beautiful decorations.

As I shine my torch on a gigantic wall of stalagtites and shawls, I can't help but think of how it must have felt for the first person who was ever lowered into this deep, dark hole by a rope, shining their torch around to view the spectacular formations. It would have been the first time these rocks had seen light - ever.

Now they are getting used to it, as visitors come by in their thousands to view the caves that are dotted all along our honeycombed coastline. Although there are many caves in the area, only a handful are open for the public to tour. Depending on your preferred level of adventure, you can tour caves that have full lighting and paths, through to "wild caving" tours, where you can go into the deep and forgotten recesses of caves with just your torch.

Caves are fascinating things and we're still learning a lot about them and their ecological characteristics. For complete novices like me, the very basics of cave ecology are intriguing. My knowledge of caves ended with stalagmites and stalagtites, but I soon discovered that other formations exist such as shawls, flowstone, helictites, pendulums, straw columns, and pillars.

And then there's the fauna and flora. Yes, some things actually live in these caves. Up around the entrance where there's plenty of light you still get the more common creatues such as small marsupials, insects, and spiders. As you descend deeper you'll find cockroaches, and then in the "dark zone", where no light reaches, the most common type of creatures are centipedes, spiders, millipedes, and mites. Different types of fungi are present too.

Some of the remains found in caves also show that other types of animals have lived in them. In Ngilgi cave near Yallingup, remains of a Tasmanian Tiger were found. Other caves have held remains of possums, bats, kangaroos, and other animals.

I can't recommend highly enough a caving tour for anyone who lives or visits the south west. You can find them by driving along - Caves Road of course! All along the road there are a number of tourist caves, from Ngilgi cave near Yallingup, through to Mammoth Cave and Lake Cave near Margaret River, to Jewel Cave and Moondyne Cave near Augusta.

There are different types of tours available depending on your preference. Mammoth Cave, for example, has a new CD-audio self guiding tour system (one of only 2 in the world) which allows you to travel through at your own pace. It even has disabled access. Then you've got Lake Cave that, as the name suggests, has a large lake in it. I also particularly like the entrance to Lake Cave, with it's staircase that leads down into the cavern and provides an awe inspiring view of the cave mouth with huge karri trees around it.

And for those who want to get a little dirty, Moondyne Cave is the one for you. Put on the overalls and hard hat, and off you go with a guide and your torch. You'll get to crawl through the dark and less travelled pockets of this cave.

Whatever your choice is, you'd do well to get in contact with a group called Caveworks. It's a visitor centre near Lake Cave and has been established to help visitors get the most out of their cave visits in the south west. The centre itself offers touch screen terminals, displays, a walk in cave model, video theatrette, laboratory, viewing platform, and more. They also offer guided cave tours, education field activities, abseiling, wild caving, rock climbing, and other adventurous activites. One of their more serious missions is to conduct valuable research to help manage and protect the caves.

And if you're after information on the Ngilgi cave, check out www.downsouth.com.au.