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This morning we woke to the sound of a rooster. We were at Wellington Caves, and the first tour started at 9.30am fake time. Still not used to daylight savings so this felt like 8.30am. As checkout time was 10am we had to have breakfast and pack up. We drove up to the kiosk carpark and bought tickets to all 3 tours. For two people this was nearly $100 but I reckon it was well spent as the Wellington Caves are well worth seeing.
First up we visited the Gaden Cave which has just about every formation you could ask for. None of the caves at Wellington take long to visit - we spent nearly an hour in the Gaden Cave.
There was a half hour wait for the next tour at 11am of the Phosphate Mine, so we had a coffee (which was made by our tour guide) before moving up there. The Phosphate Mine also goes into the Bone Cave which is full of - can you guess?
Yes, bones. The tour guide explained that the bones must have been washed into the cave in a large flood a really really long time ago. The bones are of extinct fauna, and are distributed thoughout the soil which had been compacted into stone. The bones weren't fossils, though, they were still bone. In fact, Wellington Caves was the site of the first Diprotodon bones found ever.
Look it up, kids.
There is a bird aviary at the Caves, and also a lot of birds in the park. I tried my hand at photography again - so much easier when the birds are bigger and don't fly away.
There was a 20 minute wait for the next tour, the Cathedral Cave. This cave is the most spectacular at Wellington and includes the largest Stalagmite in the Southern Hemisphere. We encountered a group of primary school children on the way out. Oh my, they were making so much noise. We got out of there as quick as we could.
We had lunch at the Caves before we left on the next leg of our journey.
Today our driving was on the highway (so boring) but at least only from Wellington to Dubbo. Again the scenery changed often, so I just had to take lots of photos. Once we arrived at Dubbo we headed out to the Taronga Western Plains Zoo. We didn't pay to go in, instead we just took a break by the cafe where you can see Black Handed Spider Monkeys and Ring-Tailed Lemurs. As well as many native Australian birds who are there for the food.
The signs say "Don't feed the birds" but I guess the Spider Monkeys can't read because there was one sitting on top of a pole, dropping pieces of apple down to the birds waiting below.
Just a short drive then north to Brocklehurst where we turned left to get to a free camp reserve by the Macquarie River.
There were lots of birds here to entertain us - cockatoos, corellas, galahs, white-winged choughs, willie wagtails, wrens and others.
Later in the night we also got to hear the old possum fight in the trees around us. Ahh - nature.
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