Last Day in Augusta

After a much needed night of sleep the three of us began the day by driving to Mammoth Cave where we embarked on a self guided tour with audio headsets. Pretty hard to take photos inside the cave, luckily I had a tripod (thanks Grammy!) which made things a little bit easier, but every time I had just about figured the settings, a group of people would be trying to walk by so I would have to start over. Here are the shots that came out alright. 

I never answered your question about the light tracings mom; the trick with light tracings is you use a slow shutter speed in order to get a longer exposure. Then you move the lights around and the camera picks up the light – almost like painting. In the caves I played around with slow zooms (not sure that’s the name for it, but that’s what I did). With the slow zoom I would have a long exposure time and zoom the camera in as it was taking the picture. 

After Mammoth Cave we went to Lake Cave, which was just a 5 minute drive away. 

As you might have guessed, Lake Cave’s claim to fame is that there is a “lake” inside of it. The thing that really blew my mind was thinking about the first person – Tim Connely – who went down and explored the cave. In order to get to the cave itself, we walked down 350 stairs.

 To give some scale, the Karri tree in the above picture is 200 feet tall and doesn’t reach the top where we began the descent. Then it’s probably another 50 feet to get into the cave itself. 

Now this is all impressive when you have stairs, but when you realize that this guy was basically just sliding down the rocks and trees to get down here you start to realize how incredible this is. Oh, and forgot to mention, when Tim Connely went down into this cave it was 1901. That means all he had was a candle stick for light. No flashlights, no phones, nothing. Just a candle. 

"I'm going to eat you! Come into my belly!" said the cave.

Easily the coolest part of the tour was when the guide turned off all the lights and there was just utter darkness. You could not even see your own hand if you held it out in front of you (I tried!). There was something really eerie but also magical about being in that kind of blackness. That being said, I would never ever ever want to be the first person to explore a cave, using only a candle, and waist deep in water. Kudos to you Tim Connely – even if you are completely insane for doing that. 

After the caves we stopped by the Augusta Bakery, our daily stop for lunch, where we got really delicious meat pies and desserts. We brought the food back to Craig’s house and watched the updates on the election here for Prime Minister. It ended up being a “Hung Parliament,” which basically means it’s a tie and that the two winning parties must make deals with the independents so they can become the majority. The whole deal making part sounds a little shady to me, but I guess that happens back home too, even if it isn’t as blatantly advertised. Rested and very stuffed we left the house to take a tour and climb the Cape Leeuwin lighthouse. The lighthouse sits on the most south-western point of Australia – the point of land where on one side is the Southern Ocean and on the other lies the Indian Ocean. 

Standing at 39 meters (128 feet), it is the tallest mainland lighthouse in Australia. 

Our tour-guide took us up to the top where we got a pretty incredible view.

(Click for full size)

With no land in the way, it was very very windy. The guide said it was typical for the lighthouse to sway up to 1cm when the wind got strong, enough that you could feel it move when on the top. Needless to say, I hung tightly to the railings.

The rock out in the photo below is Cumberland Rock, which as the guide said, “holds a special meaning for people from the U.S.” Apparently, a Washington Post reporter, interested in finding the antipode - the “global opposite of any point” - of Washington D.C found it right here. Unlike the bikini-clad island in the Pacific that he was expecting, Mike Tidwell found Cumberland Rock, a rock in the middle of nowhere that if you were to drill a hole straight down from Washington D.C would be the closest piece of land. Click the link for the full article, haven’t gotten a chance to finish it but it is a funny piece and he writes very well.  -  Cumberland Rock -  

The other funny story the guide told about the lighthouse was the world’s farthest pizza delivery, which took place when a Japanese TV show ordered a pizza from New York City. The owner of the pizza shop made the pizza base (no cheese or sauce as it would not have been able to get through customs); finished making it in Australia; and hand delivered it to the show’s host at the base of the lighthouse. Here is the link for it - it's a fun story.  -   Pizza Delivery   -

Before we could call it a day, Craig told us about his rule: when in Augusta, one must go for at least one swim a day. A rule I respected as I had a similar one for when I was in Martha’s Vineyard. Thus, on the drive home, despite the rain (more like sun-showers) and blasting wind, we ran into the water for a quick dip.


And that was our weekend! The next day (Sunday) we cleaned up the house, got one last lunch at the Augusta Bakery and went home. On the way back we stopped by Surfer's Point in Margaret River and the Bussleton Jetty - the longest wooden jetty in the Southern Hemisphere. In first photo of the jetty you can see something branching off to the right ... that is still the same jetty. 

(Click for full size)

Goodbye Augusta!