Jenolan Caves, etc.

We drove to Jenolan Caves Thursday night. We saw several and almost hit three wallabies/kangaroos with the car. We didn't really almost hit them, but they definitely hopped in front of the car, some closer than others, in time for us to brake. Back in the states, you know to kind of be careful for deer near wooded or open grassy areas. The weird thing here is even if you're driving along basically a rock face on one side of the car, a rock-wallaby can still come bounding out of nowhere. We didn't see any live wombats, but saw a few as road kill, sadly. 

We stayed at the Jenolan Caves House, which we probably wouldn't have stayed at without the Groupon deal, and it was lovely. The ambiance reminded us of Mohonk Mountain House, but on a smaller scale. The Caves House has no heat, but, it does have heated beds, which are amazing. Each side of the bed had different controls so I could turn mine way up and Michael could turn his down. There were few guests staying at the hotel on a Thursday night; just a few deal-seekers like ourselves, so it was very quiet. 

In the morning we walked around on some of the trails near the lake, The Grand Arch, Devil's Coach House, the Carlotta Arch, and the Nettles Cave. We didn't spot any of the platypuses that supposedly live in the lake, but we saw an eastern water dragon, lyrebird, wallaby, and a few crimson rosellas.  

Eastern Water Dragon

 Michael at Carlotta Arch

Elusive Lyrebird

After hiking around and eating a mediocre lunch, it was time to do some spelunking. We did the "Plughole Adventure" which involves abseiling into the Elder Cave and crawling down and through many obstacles and ending in the Imperial Cave. The whole thing took about two hours and was pretty fun and easy.

One thing the guide told us about was the cave's unique social spiders (we did not get to see any). Apparently the caves are the only place in the world where badumna socialis is known to live - in colonies.  I tried to look them up on the interwebs and found surprisingly little info about them. The thought of a bunch of spiders working together is kind of terrifying and cool at the same time. 

We had a good dose of Australian nature in a short amount of time at Jenolan Caves. I would definitely go back another time to get a break from the city. 

This morning Michael and I had a hearty breakfast at Flat White Cafe... 

We split the crunchy peanut butter french toast with berries and the baked eggs with chorizo, salsa verde, and some other tasty ingredients I can't remember. Then I kissed Michael goodbye so he could make the long journey back to the states while I hold down the fort here.

After perusing Paddington Market, I got to go on a little tea shopping spree at T2 (kind of the equivalent of Teavana) courtesy of my thoughtful coworkers who gave me a gift certificate. Here's the swag:

I also saw What We Do in the Shadows, which was hilarious. I'm not sure if it is or will play in the states, but I recommend it if you like Flight of the Conchords humor. 

And that about sums up the last 48 hours.