At Chillagoe we did two cave tours.
The first one was Trezkinn cave. The bloke at the information/ticket place was really really helpful, he only missed one small thing. There is a fairly steep set of steps to climb to get to the entrance! Most people arrived at the top puffing like steam engines including the guides.
The young park rangers guiding us were very knowledgeable and entertaining with just the right mix of scientific fact and humour. This was a well lit and very pretty cave. The tour only took 45 mins but there were plenty of formations and bats and huntsmen spiders to keep one occupied. Apparently the food chain has cockroaches at the floor level who are eaten by the huntsmen spiders. Then there are the bats who are hunted by the spotted pythons! And we get to wander amongst all that in the dark!
Leaving there we went back into town and had a counter lunch at one of the two hotels.
From there we drove towards the back edge of town to the BP fuel depot and around the back the owner has a lovely display of Ford vehicles of all ages and types beautifully restored and in running order. This is a free entry thing and the owner was happy to start up any one and talk about its merits. Himself was in his element. Unfortunately we could not stay as long as he would have like as we were booked on a second cave tour and had to leave to be on time for that.
The second cave was the Royal Arch cave. Much bigger and not as many stairs into and within it. This was a longer tour taking one and half hours and included three big caverns. Occasionally the passages were a bit tight and as in all caves you need to watch your head because of low handing rock. Same guides again and highly informative. There is no lighting in this cave so we all had to wear our own lighting pack. Good but very hard to see some bits due to the many moving lights being played over them by amateur users.
We were in a large group and as always there are those who rush to the front then stop and hold up everyone else while they take zillions of photos, they are as bad as the ones who dawdle along at the back and keep the group waiting for them to catch up before we can move to the next highlight.
When we left that cave we went back into town and took a look at the old State Smelter before driving back to Mareeba. Big day out but still pleased we went.
On the way into town on the main road we kept passing areas with big blocks of something white. Turned out they were marble quarries. Lots of them. Would loved to have had a look but they all had 'private property keep out' signs up.
Today will be a rest day.
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