Ever been to a cave that is big enough to drive through?

Well at Jenolan caves in the Blue Mountains the road goes right through the Grand Arch! We weren't expecting it, and, after winding down a long steep hill, suddenly we had arrived but there seemed to be nowhere to stop or park. The road just continued on through the cave with instructions on signs of "no stopping" and "put your lights on". After driving through this huge cavern it became clear that the parking was all on the other side of this cave, as was the ticket/ information office and the magnificent heritage listed Caves House Hotel. This Victorian Era Grand Dame of hotels was built in 1896 as a wilderness retreat for the wealthy. You could just imagine the crème de la crème of Sydney society holidaying here to escape the heat of summer.

Jenolan Caves are the world's oldest caves and have long been on our "to see" list. We parked and went straight to the caves guiding and ticket office to learn about what we could see and which caves were open. It is a huge cave system and would take weeks to explore just the caves that have been opened to the public. Nearly all the caves are only seen by guided tour, but the Nettle Cave and Devils Coach house cave are outstanding exceptions where you can do a self guided tour with an audio device. We opted for a cave pass that allowed us to do the self guided options first then a guided tour of Imperial and Diamond Caves.

 My brochure said all up these caves would be 1,150 steps not counting the steps to get to the entrances! Well we did all those steps and more and loved every minute of it. We followed the path of an ancient river passage to an underground river, seeing fossils and wonderful crystal formations then in the Diamond Cave we were wowed by the whitest of white pure crystals tinted with shades of pinks and apricots. In the Diamond Cave we felt like we were surrounded by diamonds the way the formations sparkled. No wonder the caves were developed as a tourist attraction so early in our history!

The caves were discovered in 1830 when settlers were searching for an escaped convict by the name of McKeown, who was robbing the newly settled farms and travellers. They knew he had to be hiding out somewhere close, and their search led them to stumble on the Grand Arch and Devil's Coach House caves. Deep inside they found McKeown and his hideout but the find of the caves had much more import to the settlers future than finding the convict.

During the following three decades one of the settlers, Charles Whalan, with his sons, became unofficial guides to intrepid visitors. During this time the Whalans discovered many more caves. Guiding was conducted with candles and most caves required hours of crawling to reach the internal caverns. 

By 1867 real concern was being expressed as to the damage being done by cave visitors, and the Government of the time created a gazetted reserve around the caves. This official protection was very forward thinking for the time and predates the establishment of the world's first national park by five years.   Immediately a position was created called  "Keeper of the Caves" and because protection existed so early there is little graffiti or rubbish as found in other cave systems worldwide.  

With over 300 caves documented, unexplored caves are still being found. 

With aching leg muscles and being very tired after a day of cave exploring, we drove to the town of Oberon to camp for the night. That hot shower after all those steps was amazing!