Jewel Cave and Cape Leeuwin

We stayed in Margaret River overnight and we’re here again tonight, so our plan for today was to explore some of the region. Rod’s doing all the driving and we decided against a winery visit because it didn’t seem right that one of us would have to miss out on wine tasting while the rest of us enjoyed some of the region’s finest vintages. Instead, we decided we’d confine our wine tasting to drinking local wines with our evening meals and walking, instead of driving, to the restaurant and back.

There are a number of caves in the Margaret River region, and all of them offer something different for the tourist to experience. We opted for Jewel Cave, about half an hour’s drive south of the town. The cave was only discovered in 1957. It was explored extensively in the ensuing years and in the 1960s a thylacine’s bones were discovered in the cave. Its footprint was found in 2011. Apparently the creature once roamed the region of south western Australia in search of prey. The thylacine found at Jewel Cave apparently fell into the cave through a cavity on the earth’s surface and was unable to escape.

The cave opened up into a broad chamber where impressive stalactites extending down from the roof of the cave and huge stalagmites extending up from the cave floor were illuminated so that we could view them in all their glory. In some places, long winding tree roots trailed down almost to the floor. There were broad viewing platforms that allowed us to view some of the cave’s features from relatively close range. It’s been some time since I was last in a cave and I’d forgotten how beautiful some of the natural structures within truly are.

A half hour walking track loop from the mouth of the cave took us through a section of karri forest. The giant karri trees played a key role in the development of the south western corner of this state. Timber was the chief primary industry in this region for many years, as the giant karri and jarrah trees around here provided some of the finest hardwood timber anywhere in the world during the building booms of the Victorian era. There was a good deal of Western Australian karri timber used in the construction of the London Underground, for example.

We drove south through Augusta and headed out to the most south western point of the Australian mainland at Cape Leeuwin to visit its famous lighthouse. The lighthouse overlooks the place where two mighty oceans, the Southern and the Indian Ocean, meet. You can see it here.

The meeting of the waters appeared quite unremarkable when we visited today, but I believe there are times when weather conditions at this location can be quite extreme. But the lighthouse, built in 1895, was a very impressive structure, and it’s no doubt saved countless mariners’ lives. In fact, the memorials at the site really only focus on one ship in well over a century, the ‘Nizam’, that has come to grief within sight of the beam of light radiating from Cape Leeuwin’s lighthouse. Lots of sailing ships must have travelled through these waters before the lighthouse was built. It must have been a fairly treacherous passage for some of them.

We’d heard about a beach at Hamelin Bay not too far off the scenic road back to Margaret River where fishermen often fed large stingrays close to the shore most days. We took the detour. It was getting late in the afternoon by the time we arrived and there weren’t many people on the beach. In fact, the whole camping ground, boat ramp area and beach were very quiet. It was a really nice beach, but we wondered how we would fill in our time if we stayed there but weren’t keen on fishing. Unfortunately the stingrays were nowhere to be seen, so we placated ourselves with an ice cream each instead.

We stopped for a short time at Boranup, on our return journey to Margaret River, to view the magnificent tall eucalypts of the karri forest. Although a good deal of timber has been removed from the forests of this region, it is pleasing to know that the karri forests still thrive around here. The photos here really don’t do justice to the greatness of these mighty trees, which towered above us as we walked amongst them.

Tomorrow we’re driving down to Albany, where we’ll stay a couple of nights before heading back to Perth.