Jenolan Caves
“I don’t even know what street Canada is on.”
— Al Capone (1899–1947)
On a quest for Rooster’s BBQ Chicken, I left my Katoomba hostel and drove north. After a successful mission and with a full stomach, I got back on the road to return to the hostel. On the drive back, I passed a sign for Jenolan Caves. I remembered one of my hostel mates talking about how great they were, so I did a U-turn and decided to check them out.
Gee, I thought the drive to Springbrook was scary. I had never experienced such narrow, winding roads with sheer drops of hundreds of metres. This was white-knuckle driving at its best. It was also the first time I had seen a road sign warning about both kangaroos and wombats. I was very relieved when I finally arrived at the caves.
As I was walking towards the entrance, I happened to look up just in time to see someone I knew. What are the odds of being in a different country, on a different continent and in a different hemisphere, and bumping into someone from home? What made it even stranger was that I had stumbled across the Jenolan Caves road sign by accident and decided on a whim to make the turn.
The person in question was a friend’s younger brother, who was in Sydney on his honeymoon. We took a few pictures to scare people back home, shared a few laughs about the odds of meeting each other there, and then parted ways.
I was a little apprehensive about exploring the caves because I am extremely claustrophobic. This trip had become as much a journey of overcoming fears as it was about travel. I chose the Imperial Cave tour, one of the easier tours at Jenolan Caves. My digital camera didn’t perform particularly well underground, but I did manage to get a few pictures.
The caves were so interesting and the guide so informative that I quickly forgot about my fears. It turned an accidental detour into one of the more memorable experiences of the trip.
My next stop was Sydney. It would be my departure point for the trip back to Canada, and I had four days to see the city.
