For our
final day trip from Cowra we decided to go to Abercrombie Caves. Why well it was more a case of why not, and
again did I mention science geek and boys who love crystals. The caves are located on the road between
Bathurst and Goulburn and we accessed them through the major metropolises of
Neville and then Trunkey. This did turn
out to be a bit of a mistake on our part as we had thought to pick up lunch on
the way. We learnt a valuable lesson
that day – you need a town with at least a couple of hundred people to have a
shop. Neville and Trunkey are not anywhere near that big.
Compared
with our rain drenched journey to Bathurst we had lovely driving conditions,
the sun was shining, the gale force winds had died away and whilst it wasn’t
warm it wasn’t snowing J.
It took us just under an hour to get to Abercrombie Karst Conservation
Reserve (not to be confused with Abercrombie river which we almost had). It turns out that these caves are renowned
for their karst qualities (a fact that I discovered after our trip – see writing
a blog does have a range of advantages including educating me!). Actually they did tell us about karst
qualities but they used a more direct form of English namely that these caves
are not underground and were formed by water erosion through the hill (Mt Gray)
above. Technically the karst qualities of
Abercrombie Caves are the formation that has been eroded by water action that
has developed from a sinkhole to become a blind valley. There, I am sure you will all go to bed
tonight feeling complete now that you have got to the bottom of karst caves.
You can do a
self-guided or guided tour (which includes the self-guided tour in the
price). Having come all this way we of
course opted for the guided tour which was definitely the right decision as our
guide showed us bats and wetas (cave crickets), explained wet versus dry caves
(Abercrombie is mostly dry because it is in the hill not underground) and the
stories about the bushrangers. There is
a reasonable walk over the hill to the cave entrance but through lovely bush
and rocks (in fact the reserve is really beautiful). There is then a really good descent down to
the cave which has a sizeable entrance.
Our guided
tour was of the Bushranger Cave and it came of course with the explanation
about how this cave got its name. Back
in 1830 the Ribbon Gang Bushrangers used the caves as a safe hiding place. Now for those of us not up with our
Australian bushranger histories and timelines (who maybe just like the Sydney
Nolan pictures and use Glenrowan as an excellent place to get a coffee between
Melbourne and Canberra) this is way before celebrity bushrangers like Ben Hall
or the Kelly gang were on the scene.
Now the
question was begging so it got asked – seriously what self-respecting group
of armed and dangerous men would be called the Ribbon Gang. Well it turns out there were lots of them
over 100 and according to our informative guide to identify themselves to each
other they wore ribbons (which they stole of course). Now it should be said that the local police
in Bathurst numbered only 6 so weren’t about to take these guys on by
themselves. So the government sent in
the army and mounted policy and hunted the gang down. They found the gang leaders in one of the
Abercrombie caves which is of course now known as Bushrangers Cave. The men
captured in this cave were of course all hanged but there is a lane in Bathurst
named after the gang – it is of course Ribbon Gang Lane and was just near the museum
we had been to two days earlier.
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