Underground at Endless Caverns

Sunday, 18 July 2010

Another early morning saw us taking care of a few remaining chores and relaxing a bit before we broke camp to do some sightseeing. First, though, a few housekeeping notes.

We used the Phaeton’s Vacmaster (central vacuum system) for the first time yesterday. It gets the job done. The outlet is located at the base of the pantry, about two thirds of the way from the cockpit. There’s plenty of hose from there to the rear of the coach. When stretched to its full length, the hose also reaches the cockpit, but vacuuming the inside steps was a challenge. The handheld Dirt Devil that we brought with us to vacuum the basement may become a permanent fixture and will work to take care of the steps, inside and out.

We also used the Fisher & Paykel dishwasher for the first time last night. The compact, one-drawer unit is efficient (used the eco mode) and quiet. So quiet, in fact that we wondered if it was even working. I’m very pleased with this handy amenity, which was at the top of my list for the Phaeton — J&V, thank you for opting to have it installed when you bought the coach.

On with our day. We put the trash out (picked up by the resort staff every morning) and left our campsite around 9:15a. It was 74F [23C] at our shaded site. By the time we’d driven the short (and I mean two-minute short) distance to the gift shop/office just outside the resort gate, the temp was up to 79F [26C]. Sounds comfortable, doesn’t it? I assure you that it wasn’t; the high humidity made it feel oppressive.

Scenery from in front of the Endless Caverns Gift Shop.

We were in time to buy tickets for the 9:45a tour of Endless Caverns. (Discounted $13/adult admission for resort guests). Our group was small — just the two of us plus a family of five — and our guide was informative, relating the history and the geology of the caverns as we walked through the chambers for the next 1½ hours.

The entrance to the caverns is in the building on the far left.

The credit for discovering the caves in 1879 goes to two young boys who were hunting rabbits. Removing some rocks to get at the critter they had cornered, the boys uncovered a hole. Curious, they went through the opening and found themselves in a cave with many chambers. The story goes that when they returned home, they told their father that they’d seen the parsnips and carrots in the family vegetable garden from under the ground. What they had really seen were the stalactites hanging from the ceiling of the cave. Shortly thereafter, the family started conducting candlelight tours of the caverns to supplement their farming income.

In 1919, the caverns were purchased by Colonel Brown, who wired it for electricity. We thank him for that (the lighting system has since been refurbished). As James, our guide, demonstrated during the tour, without lights it’s absolutely impossible to see a thing — not your hand in front of your nose; nor the stalactites, stalagmites, rock flows, pendants, and other rock features of the caverns.

Tour guides used to tease visitors by telling them that
this formation was a frozen waterfall.

Though the lighting conditions were far from optimum for hand-held photography, that did not stop us from clicking the shutter as James pointed out some of the interesting formations.

 

The floor of the cave is pockmarked from the water that drips from the ceiling.
it’s not unlike walking on a cobblestone path.

The only bat we saw … no, I’m not referring to Mui.
(They’ve found white-nose syndrome in some of the bats here;
the population is being watched closely.)

The passage on the left leads to the chamber known as the Blue Room (right), which ...

... gets its name from the manganese found here.

We enjoyed the mile-long tour even though we’ve visited similar caverns before. Mother Nature’s creations inspired our imaginations to run rampant, and we saw everything from crocodiles, to whales, to Fred Flintstone gazing at an ice cream cone with his mouth agape. Adding to our pleasure in the tour — the 55F [13C] temperature in the cavern; very refreshing considering the weather we’ve been experiencing. James said that five miles [8 km] of the cave system here has been unearthed and explored to date. No one seems to know how far or how deep the system really goes. So, for all intents and purposes, the caverns are indeed endless.

Time to head home.

Our tour completed, we returned to the Phaeton for the drive home. We’d planned to stop somewhere to eat the PB&J sandwiches Mui had prepared, but didn’t find a spot to pull over. So, 1½ hours and 88 miles [141 km] later, we were at the storage lot. It had been 89F [32C] when we left Endless Caverns; it was now 100F [38C] — making today the 36th day of 90F or better temps so far this summer (and we’re not even in August yet). Keeping fingers crossed that the heat wave breaks before we all melt into the pavement.

Putting the Phaeton to bed, we high-tailed it home. By 2:30p we were hard at work on chores around our “house without wheels.”