Description of the attraction
On the eastern slopes of the Blue Mountains, about 175 km from Sydney, are the famous Jenolan Caves, which are vast and surprisingly beautiful.
The discoverer of the caves in 1841 was a fugitive convict who took refuge in them from the gendarmes who were pursuing him. However, for another quarter of a century, the caves remained unexplored and practically not visited. Only at the end of the 19th century did a devoted admirer of the caves appear, who told the world about their beauty - a certain Jeremy Wilson was so delighted with this natural formation that he settled inside for 35 long years to fully devote himself to the study of this miracle.
The fame of the beauty of these places quickly spread throughout Australia, and a massive and uncontrollable stream of tourists poured into the caves. Some of them never returned from the underworld, others strove to take with them fragments of stalactites as a keepsake. It became obvious that the situation needed to be changed, and already in 1866 the caves were taken under state protection, and decent money was allocated for their study. In 1884, the caves were named Jenolan after the nearby mountain. And the word "jenolan" in the language of local aborigines means "high".
The first scientific studies found that the Jenolan Caves were formed by two rivers - Rybnaya and Koks, which for hundreds of thousands of years had been digging into limestone deposits, leaving many underground channels behind. The caves stretch for tens of kilometers. Among them, dark and light are distinguished. Light ones are those into which the rays of the sun penetrate through the gaps and holes. These are the caves of the Big Arch, in which Wilson lived, the Arch of Carlotta, named after Wilson's beloved, and the Devil's Coach Barn. The latter, according to eyewitnesses, looks like the dwelling of a fabulous monster - it is a huge hall about 100 meters high, strewn with limestone boulders. The dark caves have never penetrated sunlight, these are natural voids. Among the most famous are Vaulted, River, Imperial. Until now, the total length of the caves is not known exactly, although many underground passages have already been quite well surveyed by speleologists. More than 250 thousand people annually visit this amazing underground kingdom.
