Paradise Caves. So near (maybe just 1m from the drip line) but so far. There was only three ways in, one covered by tide, and the other two were rock ledges sloping towards a cliff. And the rain and the sea swell had made everything more slipper than I liked. Turned around.
The Paradise Caves are 100 meters north from the end of the Sunshine Beach, a wonderful beach and beach town. The best way to the caves would be to walk around a small rock outcrop, but that was the one that would require lower tide and/or smaller waves. But it was quite windy, and I did not have time to wait for lower tide.
After asking the locals, they stated that a visit was not possible. They did say one can look by going over the rock outcrop and see if one can go down. I did climb up, and that part was easy.
However, getting lower to the cave was the problem. At the top of the rock outcrop actually would extend all the way to the cave, as a couple of meters wide smooth rock surface, but it would slope towards the drop, and it would have been a high drop if one would fall, at least five meters.
Another path was to descend through a small crack in the outcrop using chimney technique. The crux there was that one would have to reach lower to exit the crack to a lower level smooth rock surface. I considered doing it, it seems maybe feasible. But again, this rock surface also sloped the wrong way again, this time dropping to the raging sea below.
So I decided against these options :-( What a wimp again.
Instead, I retreated back to the beach and while I did not do a proper swim, at least went in waist deep in my shorts. It was nice.
There was an interesting feature on the beach, by the way. The forests in this area grow the Tea Tree, and it is known to color waters flowing through the forest in tea-colors... hence a little stream coming down from the hills towards the sea looked like this:
The cave coordinates are S 26.394911 E 153.116547. The beach is here. Or technically, that's the dogs-unleashed-area, and maybe a dog beach... but you can also swim here :-) The human beach proper is more towards the south. From south you can also find parking, here.
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.
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