Apr 7, Naracoorte Caves, Robe

We bought tickets to see 2 caves and got to see Wet Cave also. We went through it first. It was a self-guided tour and it was strange being in a cave without a guide. The caves here have big round openings at ground level, then we have to go down stairs. This cave had several large chambers with big columns and the ceilings had many indentations that look like large round dimples, called naves.

Next we went into Victoria Fossil Cave, with a guide and large crowd. This cave is special because in the 1960's cave explorers found a massive cache of fossils. The fossils came from animals falling into the cave over a period of 500,000 years, then the bones were covered with dirt and more bones and finally a flow stone formation that preserved it. They found fossils of extinct animals, like a large flat faced kangaroo and a drop bear. A drop bear is a distant relative of the wombat, much larger and it climbed trees so it could jump down on its prey. The guide was really good and talked about the differences between herbivores and carnivores in their jaw bones and eye placement. Herbivores spend their time with their faces down while they eat grass and have eyes on the sides of their heads so they can see enemies approaching. Carnivores have eyes in the front of their skulls and have better depth perception so they can judge the distances to prey. Good tour.

The Bat Cave tour didn't actually go into the cave. It's where the bats breed and spend the summer and they don't want to disturb them. We had the tour to ourselves and went into a viewing room. We watched the feed from the infrared camera in the cave. On the tv screen we could see the bats hanging in the cave and flying around. Then our guide switched to recording done when there were babies in the cave. Since infrared pictures are shade of grey, the babies were just whitish thing hanging from the cave. Babies are called pups and are pink and as big as the end of a finger when born. The pups were grouped together in a nursery and the mothers would fly in and out to take care of them. Bats are mammals so the babies drink milk. They grow up quickly and start practicing their flying in the cave before they venture out to feed on mosquitoes. It was all so interesting.
Our guide took us to Blanche Cave, where some of the bats spend their winter. She even took us beyond the regular tour route, crouching under the low roof to a place where she had seen a bat a day or so before. It wasn't there, but we did see possums sleeping near the cave opening. There was also a new archeological dig there. A researcher was looking for pollen and vegetation and came across fossils, including that of the extinct Tasmanian Tiger.aA

That was a full morning and after lunch we drove back to the coast to Robe. It's a small port where 16,500 Chinese came ashore during the gold rush. Victoria had begun charging 10 pounds each when the Chinese landed there. So these Chinese came to Robe in South Australia to avoid that tax, but then they had to pay someone to guide them 500km to the goldfields. There was a lighthouse there too, a modern one.

Our crayfish thawed out and we had it for dinner.

Pictures - Jeanne in Wet Cave, Skeleton of short faced kangaroo, Bat pup, Bats, Archeological Dig, Robe Lighthouse, Samson at Robe coast