Chillagoe - the land of caves!

We have since completed our road-trip and are writing this upon reflection. However, looking back on Chillagoe, we can remember it as if it was only yesterday. Maybe this is because it is a simple place, and therefore easy to remember all the details, or maybe it's down to the fact that this small, out of the way settlement was surprisingly good. Most likely it's a combination of both.

When you search Chillagoe the first thing that pops up are the 500 caves in the area. So for us, we spent most of the previous night weighing up which cave package to get. There are 3 free caves you can explore on your own and 3 other caves accessible only by joining a paid tour. There are obviously hundreds of other caves in the area, however, only a handful are accessible to the public - there are many secret caves the public are banned from. We spent the other part of the night trying to find our free campsite and unfortunately drove on to some poor farmers' property in search for this free spot to camp - trust us when we say it's just easier to get to camp prior to sundown.

The following morning we woke and were joined by a white duck who we ended up feeding some bread. A few timid magpies also joined in on the feast.

Breakfast complete (both us and our new friends) we headed in the direction of Chillagoe. The town itself is not very big, but we were greeted by a large flock of fat Guineafowls milling around on the road. Navigating the birds we drove on and parked up at the Parks and Wildlife building to finalize our difficult decision on which caves to visit.

Trezkinn and Royal Arch ended up being our paid tour choices. Trezkinn was first up but we had a couple of hours to spare. The Parks and Wildlife building has plenty of cool history displayed around the building, so some time was spent here. Because Chillagoes creation was millions of years in the making you can follow this history in a chronological order walking clockwise around the room. There's also human and dinosaur history if you're in that.

Rachel got bored about learning how coral becomes sand becomes sandstone becomes marble etc, so she went outside. Marcus went outside but out the front door and looked for her in all the reasonable places. Twice checking the only coffee shop in town and then walking over to the big gathering of rotund Guineafowls.

Rachel now actually in the coffee shop (after waiting out the back of the building and doing some much-needed stretches are hours of cramped up car time) yells out (literally from one side of the town to the other) for Marcus to walk back for a coffee. Chillagoe Gallery 29 is a lovely Cafe and gallery in Chillagoe and has a monopoly on coffee. It also has great customer service, great coffee, and old photos of the marble mines and the history of the town.

Rachel here: Marcus got a little slack from the cafe workers after hearing what happened (all in good humour though). I had waited outside the EXIT door for him and after thinking he surely wouldn't take this long to read about coral and rock walked back through the building to be told by the worker that he went out the front door ages ago. So, I checked the toilet areas, walked to the cafe a couple of houses down, asked if they had seen some guy, and was told he came in and then walked off again. So, I looked far and wide and spotted Marcus walking further out of town towards the group of Guineafowls and called out to alert him he in fact went out the FRONT door.

With time still remaining before our first tour, we checked out some of the "have a look yourself caves". One of these - Bauhinia Cave - you literally slide under a rock and down a narrow hole in the ground and descend about 25m into the cave. This one probably isn't for the claustrophobic. This was Rachel's favorite cave, simply because it was pretty adventurous, the air was clammy down there and there was a moment of "Oh shit, what if we get lost down here". Out for some fresh air, we went to the Instagram hotspot "balancing rock".

Trezkinn cave

This is the cave you'll probably see on the brochures as it is the most beautiful.

The cave was formed over thousands of years; water has flowed through this cave over thousands of years chipping away at the sandstone and redepositing calcium and other minerals in the form of stalactites and stalagmites is something worth seeing.

Many of the stalactites (hang tight from the ceiling) form large expansive chandelier structures and because this particular cave is lit up you get to see the chandeliers sparkle.

Above: Trezkinn Cave Tour

The tour guide we had told us quite a lot about the formation of the caves but also the formation of the staircases and platforms in the caves, as he and his colleagues built the walkway structures. All the stairways were built without the use of power tools, as tools would have contaminated the small amount of oxygen the occurs naturally in the caves.

Between paid tours, we had 1 hour for lunch, but no rest for the wicked as they say. We didn't stop for lunch and instead, we opted to drive out to another self-guided cave. Every cave we saw was very different; this one was interesting as it was accompanied by many green trees and open-air spaces. See below for pictures.

Royal Arch

The same tour guide. More tourists. We all had flashlights. The Royal Arch is an unlit cave that gets its name because at the right angle one of the rock walls above the cave resembles a side-on view of Queen Victoria (who would have been the Royal in charge at the time the cave was named).

Once you get into the cave many parts are like being in a cathedral or an old school theatre with how the roof is shaped, the stalactite formations, and false floors. You can also see evidence of fossilized ocean creatures from when this area was underwater.

Some area of this cave do get natural light but most does not. You take for granted the small flashlight in your hand. With these all turned off you cannot see your hand in front of your face.

Below: Royal Arch Cave, Huntsman Spider, fossil in cave walls...

The guide told us a story of how 2 young lads got lost and disorientated in the cave after their lantern broke. The way one of them got out and sent for help was by climbing a fig tree root up into the light and to the surface. He then had to walk the 6km barefoot back into town to alert people of their disappearance.

Once of the highlights of this cave for us was the "laundry shoot". This was optional and only for the brave-hearted. You had to enter face-first on your stomach and wiggle through on your stomach through a tunnel just big enough to army crawl through. Once you were far enough through there was just enough room to stand up and shuffle onto your bottom to then slide out of the tunnel. This was a small rush for Marcus but a big hit of adrenaline for Rachel and she was very pleased to be the only girl to give it a go meanwhile Marcus was not too fazed knowing Jeff (the tour guide) could be trusted; he hadn't steered us wrong so far.

In summary, Chillagoe was well worth the drive. By completing 5 caves (2 guided ones) we had completed less than 1% of the known caves in the area. Every now and then a new one is discovered. We would definitely recommend the 'parks' building and the coffee shop in town and if we were to visit again we would like to spend more time exploring the old marble mines. Marble is expensive stuff so it's cool to see where it comes from as well as the large hole in the ground left behind in the history of the town.

Signing off, R & M.