DAY 10 - HIKING TO DRAGON CAVE AND BLOODWOOD CAVE....

 We were surprised that yesterday we felt so good after the enormous walk we had done the previous day.. Unfortunately neither Barb or I felt so good today.  Our poor knees were barely moving, and so over breakfast whilst the others were planning their walk to Dragon and Bloodcave, we made the decision not to join them today.  We had read up on the walk, and most of it was a pretty steep climb with lots of stairs..

We were pretty sure our knees would not handle it.  Ian, Kathy and Steve planned to do the walk, and the rest of us would pack a picnic lunch and then meet them out at the Lake for lunch..

 

 The trail towards Dragon Cave first crosses a dry creek bed near the opening of Russell Gully, then continues steadily climbing through the scrub and coming up to the base of the cliffs on the other side of the gully.  From the junction heading towards Gorge Lookout and Castle Mountain Lookout, the trail leads to several flights of stairs to get to the top of the cliffs.  We made the climb to check out Gorge Lookout...

Upon reaching the top, you realise you haven’t yet made it to the lookout and the path continues uphill.

Eventually, the path starts to level out and the real start for the Castle Mountain Lookout trail is reached. Staying with the main path, Gorge Lookout is a short flat walk to a platform that overlooks the gorge.

The view from the lookout, unfortunately, was underwhelming. Too much vegetation has grown too high to get a decent view of the gorge.  We did it, but we didn’t think it was worth it. We did stop and have a snack here to regain our energy as it was a pretty tough walk up...

Gorge Lookout...

The worse part about this climb for a underwhelming view was that you had to climb back down all those stairs back to the junction before you could turn off to check out both caves which were an equal distance from the turnoff but in different directions, so there was a lot of back tracking...

 The first cave they came to was Dragon Cave. 

The cave gets its name from a naturally formed dark shape on the back wall of the cave that looks like a dragon. The cave is very open so it doesn’t feel closed in but it still has an enclosed cave sort of feel and smell to it.

We spent around 10 minutes there before moving on towards Bloodwood Cave.

 The walk from Dragon Cave to Bloodwood Cave is rougher than it is to Dragon Cave as it follows along the base of the cliffs. 

The trail heads left, as do the cliffs, and the vegetation becomes denser and cooler from the difference in the orientation of the cliffs. There are some stairs up and down along the way until it doubles back higher up the cliffs shortly before reaching the cave.

 

The cave gets its name from the roots of the Bloodwood trees growing down the cliff side at the cave. Looking at the cave from the outside it is much smaller than Dragon Cave. if you squatted down and had a look shuffling in a squatted position, and then stood up, you half disappear from view...   A little way in from the opening, the ceiling opens up higher than you can reach.

The walk today was hard work, according to Steve, Ian and Kathy and they pretty much convinced us when we met up with them for lunch that Barb and I had definitely made the right decision by giving them a miss.  This walk and caves were not that spectacular and the one we had done to Dripping Rock and the Overhang were much more scenic.  

It was lunch time by the time they had completed their walk.  We were to meet them at the Lake around 1pm for lunch and their timing was spot on as we all arrived within five minutes of each other...

 

We enjoyed another lovely hour or two at the Lake.. both Ian and Steve had planned to stay at the lake and fish for the afternoon.  John and Barb headed back to camp for a nanna nap whilst Kathy and I did a little exploring around the Dam wall.  

We drove to another lookout near the dam wall for some amazing views of the wall and the Lake.  The reflections were beautiful today.  The weather was perfect without a breeze at all.  

After our drive around, we took a leisurely drive home and come across some cows just wandering along the road...  bit like Norfolk Island... it was like the owned the road...

We had a pretty chilled out afternoon.  Barb, Kathy and I decided to have a game of "Five Crowns", we obviously sounded like we were having a lot of fun, because the lady in the caravan next to Kathy asked us if she could join us.  She had heard us playing the afternoon before and obviously we must have been laughing a lot because the fun we had previously was what prompted her to ask to join us.  

We did have a nice afternoon with her, and much to her pleasure she won the game.  

The boys returned home from their fishing around 4.30pm empty handed... they didn't manage to catch any fish this afternoon..

We didn't wander down to see the birds this afternoon, our game ran too long.  Once our game was over, it was time to start preparing out dinner...  We had a pretty easy dinner tonight, Kathy cooked up a chicken tonight dish, and we just added vegetables. 

John cooked up his special tumeric rice to go with the Chicken tonight..

The boys were hungry.  All the hard work fishing down at the lake and I am pretty certain they both fronted up for seconds...

No left overs tonight...

Tonight was our last night to have a campfire.... Tomorrow, their are folk booked onto the site we have had our firepit set up on.  It kind of suits us anyway as we only have one more night here after tonight and we will need to start packing things away anyway...

Therefore, being the last night today, we needed to make the most of it... toasted marshmallows for desert tonight..

It was a beautiful night around the fire, made even more beautiful by the full moon shining over head. We have had an incredible week out here, our days have not only been filled with adventure, but also plenty of relaxation, and socializing.  It is kind of sad that it is coming to an end...

We spent some time just sitting and appreciating the beautiful full moon.  Being out in nature, and in such a peaceful environment is really good for your soul... it kind of grounds you and helps you appreciate all that is good within the world... Feeling very blessed tonight... Good friends, beautiful surroundings.... so blessed...