Spelunking Platypus

Every day this crazy country throws something totally unexpected and so much better than imagined at us! Yesterday we took a day trip to the Jenolan Caves- the worlds oldest walk in limestone caves (who knew?). They were pretty incredible and full of stalactites and stalagmites and all that fun stuff. The mud in the caves is over 300 million years old, and the "decoration" grows at a rate of about an inch every century- and some of these formations were like 10 feet tall! Definitely cool, and very random. Apparently the year after light bulbs were invented they had them installed in the caves and people came to check out electricity in action- prior to that the wealthy spelunked by candle light.

Possibly even better than the caves though was Blue Lake, where the water that flows through the caves and all the limestone comes out. It is an amazing shade of blue and turquoise because it flows slowly over the limestone and picks up particles that reflect the blue green light back, like glacial water. Even better than that was when we found out there were platypus living in the lake- and actually got to see them! We saw one floating in the water and then dive down a couple of times, and after the last cave tour ran (literally) back to the water to have another look. The platypus was floating around again! Even though it wasn't a great view, it was still super exciting to see one in the wild!

Today we went for another walk around Katoomba and went down about 1,000 steps by the Three Sisters and through the woods and ended up at Scenic World. Neither of us had any idea what to expect, but it really was like walking into another world- Disneyland gone green. It was a combination of thrilling but scenic rides (glass bottom gondola, old mining train), information on the ecology of the area, and creepy dioramas about the mining history of the town. Especially when you walk into the boardwalked weirdness out of a normal walk through the woods, it was pretty crazy. We took the old mining railway up the side of the mountain- when you get in on flat ground you are practically laying on your back in the seat, but it goes almost perpendicular to the ground as it goes up the side of the mountain and you are afraid you are going to topple over forwards and out of it. Apparently it is the worlds steepest funicular railway- lots of world record places in just a few days!

And in other exciting news, we decided to forget Melbourne and go to the OUTBACK instead! We are flying to Darwin tomorrow (!!!) and going to spend 2 weeks seeing crocodiles, kangaroos, desert, the Devil's Marbles, and Uluru. It will no doubt be amazing, and sooo Australian it really had to be done while we were all the way out here!