We woke up to a beautiful sunrise this morning even though the sky was a bit cloudy. Another cold morning but not as cold as yesterday. We are looking forward to spending the day sightseeing and so after breakfast we packed our lunch, loaded the dogs in the car and set off to the Head of Bight about a 14km drive east to the turnoff and then a 12 km drive to the Head of Bight Interpretive Centre and the entrance to the whale watching platforms.
Entry was $12 per person. The dogs stayed in the car while we set off with camera around my neck.
I was watching a couple of whales bobbing up and down in the water when i suddenly realised there were about four or five whales right in front of me just a couple of metres from the shoreline. At first I thought they were rocks until one blew a spout of water.
Head of Bight Interpretive Centre
I took a ton of photos of the whales and also some shots of the magnificent Bunda cliffs that stretched far along the coast to the Western Australia border about 200 kilometres away.
Bunda Cliffs
We then headed back to the roadhouse to get directions for some caves that I read were just north of the roadhouse. One of the friendly staff members gave us the directions and some tips on what to expect. The road in is just next to the western entrance to the roadhouse and the caves are situated about 13 kilometres along a fairly good dirt track.
road to the caves
The Murrawinjinie caves is a system of 3 caves, the first is not much more than an open sink hole but two and three are huge and well worth the visit.
The second cave, I climbed down with some trepidation at first as I wasn’t sure of my ability to climb down but I knew that if I could get down then it would be easy getting back out.
(looking down to the first of three levels in this cave)
Fortunately, this proved to be the case in the end. James stayed on top because he said in his own words, “I’m not silly enough to climb down there” but really he was being cautious just in case something did go wrong.
(James standing at top right on surface)
(looking down on second level of cave which is the dark area)
(stalagmite on floor of 3rd level)
(looking up from near 3rd level to the surface)
At the third cave, the entrance was an easy climb down some rocks and boulders where the cave had collapsed on one side.
Once down we found ourselves inside an immense cathedral like chamber about 50 metres long. We found tons of broken limestone stalactites and stalagmites as well as dead animals and bones.
It was so much fun exploring the caves, I could quite happily have spent a full day in the caves as they were fascinating to me and also because we had total freedom to explore them for as long as we wanted as there weren't any other people there and no tour guide to show us around.
(entrance to 3rd cave)
(Last tree standing on the Nullarbor)
Well not quite but from where we were it was.
(Nullarbor Car Sales - do you think it'd be a good buy?)
I guess they don't get much business out this way.
It was mid afternoon when we got back to camp. We took turns to have our showers before the weather started turning cold. We had to pay $1 for five minutes of hot water. It was so refreshing to stand under hot water and get clean again. Silly me, I was in such a hurry to get finished before the five minutes were up that I mistakenly picked up the hair conditioner and wondered why it wasn’t getting soapy. I managed to get everything done in just four and a half minutes, thank goodness!
Another end to a great day.
I had started preparing dinner while James was in the shower so after an hour of simmering it was ready to eat when we were. For dinner tonight, I cooked satay beef and rice. It was a very cold night and I decided to retire around 10pm to read my book and get warm. James stayed up and watched a DVD and then came to bed.
Well that's it for another day from the Short & Sweet Tourists.
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