DAY 118 – JEWEL CAVE AND THE CAPE LEEUWIN LIGHTHOUSE….
The weather wasn’t much
better today. It was still very overcast
and the howling Antarctica winds were
still howling….
Our plan for today was to
visit the Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse and Jewel Cave, but it did not seem good
weather to visit the lighthouse, well at least not first thing this morning as
we figured that with the overcast skies and howling wind, we wouldn’t see too
much of the beautiful views and ocean.
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| Just love these wildflowers... one of my favourites. amazing colours |
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| Wildflowers are out everywhere |
Jewel Cave was our preferred
option for this morning, but before visiting the cave, Steve and I were keen to
complete the drive we started yesterday around the different beaches and river
precinct in Augusta before heading out to the cave.
Ian and Kathy on the other hand, were keen to
do the Boranup Scenic Drive as they had concentrated on the beaches and river precinct
the previous afternoon. We arrived to
meet at Jewel Cave at 10.30am
We arrived at Jewel Cave
slightly before Ian and Kathy so had a bit of a look around whilst waiting for
them.
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| Add caption |
We organised our tickets for the
Cave Tour and then found out that we could also get discounted tickets to the
Lighthouse as part of our Cave tour package, so in the end, we purchased that
also, as it was considerably cheaper to do it this way.
Jewel Cave is the biggest show cave in Western Australia; comprising three massive chambers. It is also home to one of the longest straw stalactites found in any tourist cave in Australia.
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| The steps went down down down.... |
The tour lasted for an hour and our guide Jackson was both informative and funny. It is good to see such passion for an area in someone so young, but you could really tell that Jackson loved his job and also loved these caves.
Our tour finished at 12noon, and they advised us at the caves that we would need to book our Lighthouse tour before leaving as they were filling up pretty quickly, so Jackson rang ahead for us and booked us into the 2pm Lighthouse tour.
This gave us a couple of hours to have lunch before needing to be out at the lighthouse. Steve and I got talking to a couple Steve and Robyn from Wollongong in NSW. They had just bought their caravan and this was their maiden voyage. They had six weeks to drive across to Perth and back again and were just loving the lifestyle. We shared some travel experiences, swaps accommodation, and sightseeing recommendations before leaving them to head into town to the bakehouse to pick up a pie for lunch.
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| Lunch at the beach |
Cape Leeuwin is one of the most scenically spectacular places to visit in the Margaret River region of Western Australia.
This is the extreme south-western most point of the
Australian continent, and the point where the Indian Ocean meets the
Great Southern Ocean – a bleak and windswept place almost completely surrounded
by huge crashing waves and sparkling blue sea.
At the very end of the Cape, on a narrow peninsula of
granite jutting out into the ocean, there stands a tall lighthouse, built in the late 19th century. The Cape Leeuwin
Lighthouse affords spectacular 360
degree views.
This
peninsula, with its stunning scenery and historic attractions associated with
the lighthouse, is enclosed within the Lighthouse Precinct, a fenced-off
area that you pay a fee of $8/adult (concessions apply) to enter. To climb to
the top of the lighthouse (well worth doing!), you must join a tour for an
additional $12/adult.
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| Climbing the stairs of the lighthouse.. |
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| Views from the lighthouse |
As one of the great Capes of the Southern
Ocean (along with the Cape of Good Hope, Cape Horn and Tasmania), the Cape
Leeuwin coastline has a treacherous history as an important maritime landmark,
and a final resting place for 23 ships (all but one of which were wrecked
before the lighthouse was built!).
In 1881, a
proposal was made to build a lighthouse on the Cape to make shipping safer.
Building began in 1895 and was completed in 1896.
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| Where the two oceans meet... |
At 39m-tall and
56m above sea-level, the Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse is the third-tallest
lighthouse in Australia and the tallest in WA – and one of the most visually
stunning. The lighthouse stands tall in its lonely position at the end of the
dramatic granite peninsula, stark-white against clear blue summer skies, and
through bleak cold fronts and wild storms off the ocean.
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| magnificent wildflowers |
The Cape Leeuwin
Lighthouse was one of the last in the world to remain manually operated with a
clockwork mechanism, only switching over to automatic electrical operation in
1982.
The Lighthouse
also stands where the Indian and Southern oceans meet, just
two of the
world’s Seven Seas. It sparks one’s
imagination and contributes a sense of drama to the already very dramatic
coastal scenery, even if it is just an arbitrary line on the maps!
In very rough
conditions, you can actually see the two oceans clashing where the waves
and currents meet from different directions, creating bigger waves and
treacherous conditions for boats!
However, it was not something we were able to see on our visit to Cape
Leeuwin. Sure, we saw turbulent seas with big waves crashing along a line out
to sea near where the oceans meet, but it looks to us more like it might have
something to do with the location of reefs and rocks than the mixing of the
oceans…
There were only
six of us on our tour, Ian, Kathy, Steve and I, and a young Singaporean
couple. We did the climb to the top of
the Lighthouse and our guide had offered to take photos of each couple up
there. When it was time for the young
Singaporean couple to have their photo take, the young man got down on one knee
at the top of the lighthouse and proposed to his girlfriend.
It kind of made
it a special moment for us all. She of
course said yes, and he put a beautiful ring on her finger and there were
congratulations all round from the rest of us.
It kind of made our day.
We were also very
blessed and fortunate in that as we went up to the top of the lighthouse, the
sun actually came out for about half an hour or more, so we managed to get some really lovely
photos.
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| A mass of wildflowers |
When we paid for our tour
and ticket, we were given a remote control gadget through which we were able to
hear information about the history of Cape Leeuwin and the lighthouse keepers
who lived out there. The precinct has
numbered, signed information plagues and as you wander up to them, you press
the corresponding number on your remote and listen to the detailed information
about that particular topic, so we spent the next hour or so wandering around
the precinct listening to this.
It kind of made
it a special moment for us all. She of
course said yes, and he put a beautiful ring on her finger and there were
congratulations all round from the rest of us.
It kind of made our day.
We were also very
blessed and fortunate in that as we went up to the top of the lighthouse, the
sun actually came out for about half an hour or more, so we managed to get some really lovely
photos.
When we paid for our tour
and ticket, we were given a remote control gadget through which we were able to
hear information about the history of Cape Leeuwin and the lighthouse keepers
who lived out there. The precinct has
numbered, signed information plagues and as you wander up to them, you press
the corresponding number on your remote and listen to the detailed information
about that particular topic, so we spent the next hour or so wandering around
the precinct listening to this.
One of the things we came
across was this cow, so of course we all had photos taken with it. It was not what you would expect to see at
Cape Leeuwin. However, this cow was left
after the 2010 Margaret River Region Cow Parade, a cow-themed, open-air
sculpture exhibition that’s held in a different place around the world each
year.
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| Afternoon Tea |
In the end, the weather
turned quite nasty and cold again so we made our way back into the warmth of
the café on site and ordered hot chocolates and shielded ourselves away from
the weather.
After we left here, we both
went our separate ways again to do some exploring. Steve and I headed out into the back roads of
the country first, driving as far north as Karridale where we fueled up ready
to take off again the following morning.
The countryside around here is very green and picturesque and we enjoyed
the drive.
After fueling up we headed
back into town, where we then took another scenic drive up behind the service
station in town up to a lookout that overlooked the ocean. Again, we could only imagine how truly
beautiful this would have been if the weather conditions had been ideal, as you
could see the ocean.
What did strike us though
were the magnificent grass trees growing in this area. They were massive, so of course, One had to
oblige them by taking a few photos of them.
By now the afternoon was
nearly over, so we headed back into town, picked up some fish and chips and
headed to the beach to eat them. In the
end, we stayed in the car and ate them there, as it really was too windy and
cold, and we noticed a few spits of rain on our windscreen. We were not keen to brave these sort of
elements regardless of the weather.
Then it was home.
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