CAMPSITE # 24 - Geehi's Campground - Kosciuszko National Park

From Tumut, we headed straight for Kosciusko National Park. Our first stop, Yarrangobilly Caves where Tom was absolutely in his element. Here, they have discovered in total 364 limestone caves. Once we arrived, we booked ourselves in for a tour of one of the caves. We had an hour to kill before the tour so we headed off to the "Thermal Pool".

Quite a strange little setup, this thermal pool was actually built by prisoners of the nearby Cooma prison back in the 1960's and just looks your everyday backyard pool. But not when you look at the bottom of the pool! As it's a thermal pool, 100,000 litres of water flow out of the rock wall every hour making the water itself very high in minerals & salts but also encouraging a crap load of algae & plant life on the base of the pool. The water temperature stands at 27degrees all year round so on a 28 degree day like it was - we weren't able to appreciate it's warmth however I can imagine during the winter times it would be absolutely divine. 

Our tour was a tour of the "Jersey Cave". Jersey Cave is noted for its rare displays of black and grey flowstone, coloured by ash from ancient bushfires. The path length is 185 metres and includes 217 steps.

When led to the cave, you're sort of led along a path along the cliff side featuring beautiful gorges running below. The gate we were led into is quite unassuming, as if it was just plain Old Man Joe's undercover bomb shelter. It was certainly no run of the mill huge tourist attraction, it was more like being taken into a shed to see someone's car collection. 
Once the guide turned the lights on, the steps plummeted down through (in Tom's words) plain, boring limestone covered in algae. The first few metres were quite unimpressive, as if you were just in a hole in a ground. And then, once the steps wound down further... the second cavern was getting better with a slight wow factor but it certainly wasn't overwhelming. But then, the third flight of stairs, once we poked our heads through ... wow!! It was absolutely incredible. Parts of the cave were like an absolute wonderland featuring delicately created stalactites (the sharp pointy ones coming from the ceiling downwards) & stalagmites (the deposits growing upwards to meet with the stalactites). They had names for all of the different formations - like the wedding cake, Cleopatra's needle, the piano organs and the crystal garden. At times, I was expecting Pixies to flutter around my head whistling sweet tunes in my ears and then we would all break into a song and dance as if it was something out of Alice in Wonderland. We took dozens upon dozens of photos...

Indiana Simpson & his shivalinga

The Crystal Garden...

Busterd! Sneaking a chocie :(

Afterwards the ranger was kind enough to take us to the Bowerbird's Bower. I think Tom nearly wet his pants...

Tumut Pond Dam... Pond.. yeah right!

 A lovely winter hut with a huge fireplace

We had considered scooting all of the way to Thredbo but we didn’t really account for Alpine driving along the way. Sloooow and winding & bloody exhausting! (even as a passenger!) Even though parts of the road are really tight, you have to be thankful for all of that snow fall during winter as the roads were absolutely perfect – not a pothole in sight! I suppose they’d have to be when you’re driving on ice.

One really eerie part was along the Alpine Way driving right through the thick of where the firestorm annihilated it back in 2003... they stood like giant matchsticks everywhere you looked... reminded me of what would be a summer scene out of The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe. Apparently, the seedlings in the trees will help rejuvenate the area but if another fire hits the area again within the next 20 years, the seedlings will no longer be able to reproduce for another growth spurt to come through.
We reached the highest point so far – 1580 metres elevated from sea level but something tells me we’ll smash that record & more sometime over the next few days.

We gave up on route to Thredbo and pulled up camp alongside the creek at a lovely spot called Geehi’s Flat... absolutely riddled with mountain kangaroos and black rabbits.. hungry anybody? ;)

Having a little box...