Cutta Cutta Caves

Was a slow start yesterday as we waited on news from Toyota. Not entirely sure when the car would be ready, it was hard to plan for anything given the distance of all the tours. With only one car, even the Cutta Cutta caves 30kms south of Katherine twice in the heat was not overly appealing.

Instead, we had a big bacon and eggs cook up, then took advantage of the time to put a much needed load of washing through. Fiona had to head to the reception to get change. SHe said to Dianne at reception “You need to put a coin dispenser in the Laundry”

Dianne laughed, “We would, but the backpackers would just break into it and steal the money! They will take anything not nailed down… two days ago they broke one of the soap dispensers to steal the soap inside!!!” Seems that the backpackers think because they had to pay so much to stay at a nice 4 star caravan park that they are entitled to save money elsewhere by stealing what ever they can to recoup some of the cost. Sad really that few self centred “the world owes me” people still ruin it for everyone else 🙁

The call finally came just after 1pm. The car was finally ready 🙂 It was the ignition coil on cylinder 3, so Mark was only running on 5 cylinders. Lucky we made it to Katherine really. We met a nice old couple in the park that also had their car at Toyota. They had stopped to get the car serviced in Darwin, but the mechanic had forgotten to put the diff cap back on properly and they blew the diff in their Prado. Had to wait for another one to be shipped from Japan… they had been here a week with no car, and could be stuck here for a few more! To make it worse, while the diff was being fixed under the mechanics insurance, there were no rental cars available in Katherine, so they were stuck in the park 🙁

Hard life on the road when the car breaks. Guess we have been lucky really.

Anyway, with the car back on the road and driving a lot better on six cylinders, we raced back to camp, loaded the family and headed out to the Cutta Cutta caves. The tour ran every hour on the hour, so we were racing the clock to make the 2pm tour… didn’t really want spend an hour standing around in the heat with 6 screaming children. We were lucky, arriving just after 2pm and managed to get our tickets without a moment to spare.

The Cutta Cutta caves are a limestone cave formation with one way in and one way out. They run for about 300 to 400 metres underground, ending in a pool that is actually the water table, but our tour only went about half way as any further you were crawling through the caves on your hands and knees. They are only accessible during the dry season as during the wet season the water table rises and completely floods the caves.

The caves were discovered by a stockman in about 1900 when his cattle kept disappearing. Hunting around he realised they kept falling into the caves. He named it Smith cave. During WWII, around the time Katherine was bombed, troops used to come into the cave and use the stalactites for target practice! I don’t fancy shooting a rifle in there, the sound would be deafening! In 1967 the caves became protected under the Northern Territories Reserves Board, and tours into the caves began. In the early days, it was hard going without any boardwalks, but the tour went all the way to the back and people were able to swim in the thermal spring at the end.

The cave itself has no Aboriginal significance and as our aboriginal guide explained, and there is absolutely no indication that the Aboriginals in the area ever actually used the cave. However, in 1979 when “The Land” was given back to the Aboriginals, the tribal elders came into the cave and looking at the sparkling crystals on the walls they thought they looked like stars, so said this must be the place the stars come to sleep during the day before returning to the sky at night. Cutta means stars, and repeating the word “Cutta Cutta” means lots and lots of stars.

Seems a bit silly to me that the cave had to be renamed to an Aboriginal name given it had zero significance to them… political correctness gone wrong really.

Anyway, we got our tickets just in time before our guide sent us on our 365m walk through the hot Australian bush to the cave entrance. Jess read the sign aloud for us all as we waited for our guide to lock the shop and join us.

Standing guard at the entrance was a tiny Rock Wallaby. You may see him in the photo below, in the centre right up the back… he was pretty small and hard to see.

We descended the stairs into the cave and waited in the dark for our eyes to adjust. The photo below shows the cave entrance from below. Also, I felt a little sorry for this old couple, the only other ones on the tour and stuck with our rowdy lot!!

As our eyes adjusted to the light, our guide led us deeper into the cave. The kids weren’t all that interested until our guide pointed out the crystals… “Oooh…” all the little girls exclaimed in the darkness!

As per the sign Jess read at the start, the cave is inhabited by a number of other creatures including snakes and bats, but we did not see any of these critters in this tour. Most of them live much deeper in the cave than where we can go. What wasn’t on the sign, but we read on the internet is that legend also has it that the cave is haunted by a ghost. Now the photo below I had to take three times as each time I took it, on the photo you can see a face formed out of rock above the stalactites. Funny thing was, I could not see it by the naked eye???

I’m not saying this was the ghost, but it was a little strange…. Also, if you scroll back to the cave entrance, you may see a nose and mouth… didn’t see this until we got back to the caravan park… spooky!!

Anyway, we made it to the end of the tour where the guide turned all the lights out to give a view of just how dark it can be underground. We held onto the little kids because you couldn’t even see you hand in front of your face!! So much for being cooler underground it actually got hotter and more humid towards the end as it became harder for fresh air to penetrate this deep into the cave and having a thermal spring at the end didn’t help much!

Our guide pointed out shapes that had been formed in the rocks, including a full faced Elvis Presley shadow that could be seen as he shone his torch on the wall.

Tour done, we retraced our footsteps to the surface and returned to the shop for a much needed ice-cream.

Heading back into town, we stopped at the information centre to try to book ourselves on the Katherine Breakfast tour recommended by Judith. Unfortunately we had left it too late and it was already fully booked. Looks like we will have to stay another night and try to get on the tour tomorrow. Will be an early start as the tour leaves at 7am and is about an hours drive away!! We will pack the vans tonight so we can push out straight after the tour and complete our journey north towards Darwin.

Fiona and Kate ran into the Information Centre, and as I sat in the car with the kids I watched the local Aboriginals sitting and staring into space. Wasn’t until I saw some of them get up that I realised they were wasted! Could hardly stand, let alone walk! One guy was so zonked he could barely hold his head up. Sad really and you can’t appreciate how bad it is until you see it for yourself.

In the car on the way back, Fiona and I have a conversation about whether or not we were racist given how we felt about being around them but as I pointed out, you can’t be a racists for stating the facts (and they are the facts) if you are not prejudiced towards them. We are simply uncomfortable around them because they are an unknown unpredictable experience that we are not used to. It is the right thing to be cautious about the unknown especially when you have little kids with you, but that does not make you a racist.

Anyhow, that’s it for today although I need to share one more photo with you. This one was very disturbing though and not for the weak hearted… if you are brave, scroll down, but if not stop here and read no further… YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!
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This is a photo of Mark drinking water!

See Jenny, we are keeping our fluids up, and not just the alcoholic kind!!!!