Overview
Explore the extraordinary Mammoth Cave at your own pace with a self-guided audio tour, allowing about 1 hour. The first chamber is wheelchair accessible (though not push chairs). However, for the whole cave system, be prepared for a lot of steps, requiring a decent fitness level.
Enter via a sloping boardwalk, descending into the cool humid air and other-worldly atmosphere of this gigantic limestone cave. Festooned with impressive stalactites and stalagmites, whose rings faithfully record rainfall, these formations are effectively a weather record dating to prehistoric times. They also prove that we are currently living in the driest ever period. Famously visible also are a host of fossils embedded in the limestone, remains of Australian megafauna of 46,000 years ago. It is amazing that we can witness these in situ and glimpse the far-distant past.
Visitors finally emerge into the daylight, leaving the ancient world behind and readjust to ‘real time’ with a short, meandering bushwalk through marri forest.
Banner photo: Holly Winkle, courtesy of the Margaret River Busselton Tourism Association
Practical Information
LOCATION: Caves Road, Forest Grove. 21 kms, (15 mins) south of Margaret River along Caves Road
TOURS OPEN: from 9am to 4pm
COST: Adult $22.50; Senior $20; Child $11.50