Capricorn Caves

Capricorn Caves is a limestone cave under a hill a town called The Caves, Queensland, Australia. This is a small town about 30 kilometers north of Rockhampton. A wonderful little town... with The Caves elementary school, The Caves bar, etc. But the cave! Such a nice place to visit. It is a commercial show cave with a variety of tours, from the basic tourist walking tour to more adventurous tours. I did both actually, was lucky to be able to reserve a slot in the adventure tour as well as they only do them if there's enough participants.

And so many things to talk about. Encounter with a snake while crawling. The roots everywhere in the cave, despite being high (up to 30 meter high rooms) the forest above the cave sends its roots down for water, I guess. There's a nice little restaurant/bar and a gift shop, easy parking... In the neighborhood there's also the Mt. Etna Caves national park.

But let's start with the snake. I had had nightmares about this, actually. And there I was, crawling in a tight tunnel in the Capricorn Caves when the person in front of me spots a snake where the tight spot opens to a room. Not in front of our noses and under our bellies, but .. too close for comfort. And yes, it was a Python so non-venomous and mostly non-dangerous. But .. eww.  (More about Australian cave fauna in another article.)

In a collapsed sinkhole:

Sign:

Owl in the cave:

The snake:

Cave restaurant and ticket sales facility:

Little thing:

Tunnels:

Local beer (the village is called The Caves):

The hill under which the cave is:

Adventure tour group:

Roots and stalactites:

Ferns growing in pots inside the cave, moved back here after being rescued elsewhere post-wildfires:

Entrance:

Nice mini-stalactites:

Crawling in the tunnels near the snake encounter:

Small bones dug up from the cave floor:

Bat bitten in half:

More information about other caves I visited in the area can be found from these articles:

• Tamborine Mountain Glow Worm Caves
• Sprinbrook's Natural Bridge
• Mount Beerburrum Bat Caves
• Paradise Caves at the Sunshine Beach
• Mt. Etna Caves National Park

Read more urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos and text (c) 2024 by Jari Arkko, map picture is a snapshot from Google Maps. All rights reserved.