The Cape and The Cave

What a surprise.... we had more heavy rain overnight! This morning we woke up and Mum and I spent a bit of time catching up on some computer work. Then we had breakfast outside in the cool, weak sunlight. After breakfast the signwriter came over and put the signs on Fred - he looks beautiful now! Uncle John also organised a sign for Mum and Dad's van as a birthday present for Dad. Now we all have signs!

After breakfast we drove down to Augusta and then on to Cape Leeuwin - the very south west tip of Western Australia. The wind was blowing a gale - but I think it is always like that down there. We visited the Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse (built in the 1890s and still functioning). It is a beautiful old building which has obviously been built to last!

This is also an interesting part of Australia's geography as it is where the Indian Ocean meets the Southern Ocean. I looked really hard but couldn't see a line dividing the two oceans!

Now I was going to write a heap about our caving adventure here, but blogspot has decided to have a little nervous breakdown and refuse to upload any more photos - so I guess I can tell you about our caving, and upload the pics tomorrow!

There are a lot of caves in this area, and we decided to go and explore one this afternoon. We chose the giants cave for no particular reason other than we drove past the sign. The lady at the building at the front of the cave told us this was the most "vigorous" of the caves in the area. Mum gracefully declined the offer to go exploring (claustrophobia being an issue) and Dad decided to do the gentlemanly thing and wait with Mum whilst Uncle John and I went and explored. This was no guided tour - we were given hard hats and a dolphin torch each and pointed in the direction of the caves. We climbed down a zillion steps to the mouth of the cave and then continued our descent into the cave system. What a wonderful journey this was. We climbed down steps and ropes into huge caverns filled with the most wonderful stalactites and stalacmites. With only our torches to light the way - and no-one else in the caves, it felt like we were really discovering each new area for the first time. We climbed up ladders, squeezed through holes, scrambled up rocks and climbed down slopes holding a rope (and sitting on my bum!). It was truly a wonderful experience and when we finally got to the end - we wished we could do it all again. We climbed up and out of the cave to finish the experience with a beautiful walk through a forest of karri trees and huge grass trees. What a wonderful afternoon (and how much of a complete dude is Uncle John - after heart surgery last year he is just so fit now!)

We came home for an early tea (as we somehow managed to miss lunch) and a social evening in the barn chatting to the other campers here. Tomorrow we pack up early and head off above Perth - and hopefully out of this awful weather.