Exploring Margaret River region of Western Australia was a must-do-thing in our plans of Perth visit. Since it was around 300 km away from Perth, our initial idea was to do an overnight trip. Our mistake – we didn’t realize that it was a long weekend on our planned dates as country was celebrating Queen Elizabeth’s birthday and it was a public holiday in addition to routine weekend off days. So when we started our search of hotels few days prior to our trip, we found out that all hotels are almost fully booked and there is no chance of reserving two rooms for two families (mine and my friend’s) in a hotel. Determined in our intentions, we started thinking: can we do it in one day considering that we are travelling with kids? and that we want to visit Busselton Jetty, exploring Lake Cave and Light House at Cape Leeuwin in Margaret River area? It was really tough but we decided to go on. When we discussed our plan with our third friend, he also jumped in :). So now we were three families planning to visit three tourist spots in single day while covering approximate total distance of 700+ km.
Apart from long distance travelling, another problem was to find Halal food in Margaret River region. Being not sure of Halal food availability, we decided to take home cooked food with us. Additional work for our wives :P.
As per our plan, we left Perth early in the morning around 06:00am. After visiting Busselton Jetty, we headed towards Lake Cave.
Lake Cave Visitor Center.
Ticketing office was inside visitor center. They were also selling souvenirs, maps, cave photo books etc.
The woman on counter informed us that a guided tour departs every half an hour. One can’t explore Lake Cave on his own. Guided tour is a must and is included in 22.5 AUD ticket. We had to wait 1.5 hours for the earliest available tour but we utilized this time quite nicely. We had our lunch.
Stairs going down to assembly deck near entrance of lake cave. Total one-way steps are around 300.
Intermediate resting area prior to above assembly area. I took this photo from start of stairs.
Events deck with couple of circular glasses embedded in its wooden floor. One can have a full view of cave surroundings from this deck.
Our guide waiting for other group members. Group consists of max 25 persons.
The entry to the cave is through a spectacular doline – a large hole in earth.
Looking up from cave entrance.
Can you guess what are these white spots on rocks? Yup, spooky spider’s webs.
Awesome crystal formation in lake cave.
Lake cave is the most active dripping cave in the region. Water droplets were continuously falling on us.
A permanent lake has been formed inside the cave. Our tour guide told us that its drinkable water yet drinking from lake is not allowed to maintain lake water level as well as to avoid it mixing with impurities.
So-called dragon formation in lake cave. Can you spot head of dragon?
Lake cave is 62m deep but it’s not very huge. The good thing is there are walkways and proper lighting in the cave.
In order to feel the real atmosphere inside cave, our guide switched off all lights and asked us to keep quite. it was pitch dark with some droplets falling chimes like sound. Then lights were switched on again.
Light reflection in the lake.
It was a nice experience on walk on above-lake board while limestone crystals shining around you.
Eventually we started our return to the base.
We had to get out of the cave quickly now as another group was waiting outside and our one hour cave tour was over. Coming down to the lake was not that difficult but climbing 300 stairs continuously was a tough job. Although the weather was pleasant and atmosphere inside cave was slightly cold, I was sweating heavily due to exertion while going up. The tour organizers told us that children can also visit the cave but in my opinion children should not visit the cave as they may get frightened due to darkness or can’t do this up & down stair exercise. We were surprised when our guide told us that its his 5th tour of the day. Either he was a strong man or perhaps, we should be regular in our workout.
Returning to base.
and still a long way to go but we made it :).
Location & Coordinates
Coordinates of Lake Cave Margaret River : -34.0789952, 115.0293661
Be advised that mobile network service could be limited in the area. At least, it didn’t work for us. We were using Vodafone. I’m not sure about other service providers. So you should be careful when using Google Maps navigation in your mobile which requires internet connection. Alternatively, you should use satellite navigation system of your vehicle (if available) or you can use Here maps app in your mobile which also work offline. Here maps are free and available for both Android and IOS systems.
A Muslim Traveller 