Ancient Oasis: The Ethereal Lake Cave

In the early 1900s, keen adventurers struggled down a long swaying rope ladder in long skirts and suits to get to the entrance of Lake Cave. Now, there are stairs and viewing platforms, which descend through the natural beauty of the doline, down to the small cave entrance.

ANCIENT OASIS

The Ethereal Lake Cave

WORDS | Sarah Robinson

The doline used to be a giant cavern. Then the ceiling collapsed and created an incredible sunken forest, laden with ferns, karris and wildflowers. It’s breathtaking, which is also how you’ll feel climbing the 325 stairs to the surface.

The suspended deck is the best spot to admire the sunken forest. The view takes in the magnificent doline, which is probably why people choose the spot to get married, and to celebrate other special occasions.

Lake Cave is one of more than 100 limestone caves beneath the LeeuwinNaturaliste Ridge. Lake Cave’s manager, Andrew Green, says there’s evidence that the Wadandi Noongar people used nearby caves to shelter in the cold winter months.

“Archaelogical research in a nearby cave found evidence of more than 47,000 years of continuous use by the Pibbulmun Wadandi people, and that strong connection with the local caves continues today.” he says. “Archaeologists, working closely with local custodians, dug down more than four metres in the cave floor and found a series of fireplace hearths that revealed some extraordinary insights into the lives of the Wadandi.”

European settlers first noticed the cave in 1867. A 16-year-old Frances Bussell was searching for lost cattle when her horse

stopped suddenly at a forty-metre drop. The Bussell family didn’t find the cave again for thirty years.

Since opening to the public in 1901, Lake Cave has been something of a marvel to people. Andrew says caving was going through a real boom at the time, and folk came from all over to explore caves in the region.

“People used to get a train from Perth to Bunbury, then another one to Busso, then they’d get a horse and cart from Busso to Caves House in Yallingup, then another horse and cart to Lake Cave,” he says. “It was a big deal.”

When you step into Lake Cave, your guide will tell you to duck carefully beneath Headache Rock. Once inside you’ll be met with a sparkling crystal chamber, filled with delicate formations and of course, the tranquil body of water it is renowned for.

At around one million years old, Lake Cave is relatively young for a cave. But that’s also what makes it so incredible.

“Those much older caves have often had events where there was soot blowing in or volcanic ash or just pollen and dust and everyday stuff, which can make things look a bit grey and mottled,” Andrew says. “In large parts of Lake Cave you’ve got brand new crystal and you get that sparkling off the torch. In a fraction of the time, we’ve got more crystal in many cases, than caves that are three or four hundred million years old.”

One of Andrew’s favourite parts of the cave is the Suspended Table; an impressive sheet of flowstone held up by two columns. The table formed when a slight rise in the acidity of the water caused a whole floor level to completely disappear beneath it.

“I’m in a local caving club and I go into caves that are out in the middle of nowhere,’ he says. “The Suspended Table, you just don’t see anything like that. Maybe a tiny version here and there, but a five and a half tonne one, you just don’t see.”

Beneath the table, running through the chamber is the water the cave is renowned for; it’s not technically a lake though.

“It should be called Stream Cave,” he says. ‘It’s the stream that just kept going. It had everything thrown at it, even acidity. If you go back about a million and a half years ago, there would have been no limestone here at all.”

Andrew says the Lake Cave stream could have been flowing in pretty much the same spot, as a surface stream, for tens of millions of years. Then, in just the past million and a half years it was buried. But that didn’t stop it. “It just kept flowing,’” he says. “And that ancient stream is still here, it’s just been mobbed by dune sand.”

To explore Lake Cave for yourself, visit margaretriverattractions.com and book a tour online.