a caving adventure.

On Saturday when I was in Launceston, Collette, Dale and myself were planning on heading out to Del city to attend the North YSA Thanksgiving dinner. 

Random observation: Does anyone else think it's kinda funny how us Australian YSA are celebrating all these American traditions? Halloween....Thanksgiving.... Random. Just a thought!!

Before it, we decided that we would go out that way early and do something fun. The first plan was to go to the Westbury Show, which happened to be on.  When we got to Simon and Simone's house however, they told us it was crap and that it had no rides. Disappointment! So we went for plan number two.  According to Coll, King Solomon's cave, out at Mole Creek, were giving free tours all day, because it was the 100th anniversary.  So we gave them a call to see if it would be ok if we just rocked up for a tour, or did we need to book.  The person on the phone said it would be fine if we just showed up, and that we could go on the tour.  At this time it was 3pm. The next tour was at 3.30pm - we couldn't make it.  But there was one at 4.30, so we planned to make it to that one.  This provided one small problem. The dinner in del city was to start at 5.30pm.  We figured that the tour would take roughly 45 minutes, and that it would then take us 25 or so minutes to get back in to deloraine. hmmmm. Also - Coll and Dale had food assignments for the dinner - Corn and Carrots! (ha ha!), which they hadn't yet prepared or cooked.  So we took over Simone's kitchen and prepared out food and stole some of Simone's pots.  We then deposited the uncooked corn and carrots at the chapel and hoped someone would cook them for us because we were going to be a little late for dinner.

So off we went to the caves, (our group now included Simon, Sarra, Hallie and Oliver) making it in time for the 4.30pm tour.  We walk down to the caves entrance, and just as we get there the man calls out "all those with 4.30 tickets!"  We all look at each other thinking "crap, we don't have tickets".  So Simon and Collette head over to the ticket man and try and explain that we rang and they said we didn't need to book etc etc. Simon used his "Do you remember me from..... I'm a policeman from Westbury" line - eventually it worked!! But only because some other people for the 4.40pm tour didn't show up and so they let us join them! hooray!!

So we went on our caving adventure, with the funny old man tour guide, who kept coming out with these fantastic one liners that made us all laugh!!  The cave was awesome. I haven't been in a cave since I was little, and it was cool to check out all the Stalactites and stalagmites and all that fun cavey stuff!  All the way through the cave, Dale was making gross noises, and blaming them on Oliver! It was way funny, me and coll so thought it was Oliver, only to find out it was Dale all along. It was so so funny.

This is taken in the cool little first  "room" of the cave. 

Just after the caves entrance.  

Our tour guide told us, in reference to the entrance 

"It used to be a crack. It's not a crack anymore.  It's a door" 

- We laughed. A lot.

Some cool looking Stalactites

Shawls

"This is referred to as the Rice paddies.  

This is because it looks just like the rice paddies in 

China...and...um....other Asian countries" 

- Tour guide.

"Bacon" Shawls - this is really what they are called. 

And it really does look like Bacon.

Collette looking excited about our caving adventure!

After the tour (this was probably about 5.25pm), we headed back to the car, and off we took....for about 100 metres, til we stopped.  We were stuck. A tree had fallen across the road.  It was now about 5.30pm - whoohoo the YSA dinner was starting...haha. OOPS!  We waited at the trees while a man went to get a chainsaw from the other direction, and as we waited Dale and Simon, and some other people who also wanted to leave, got out and started moving pieces of the trees off the road.  Sarra wanted to help, got out and got told by her dad to "go and get collette to take some photos of this!"  haha. So that is what we did.

One tree fell and hit another, 

so there were two trees on the road.

This car didn't want to wait and so just took off

 underneath the trees where there was a gap 

from what the boys had moved out of the way.

The man with the chainsaw.

After the trees were all cut up, we took off.  It was now about 6pm.  As we rounded the bend near Mole Creek, Dale's phone came in to reception.  He had a message from Brad that was sent at 5:50pm asking if we would be there soon. Dale replied with "tree fell, almost there".  Technically a lie, as we were at least half an hour away. haha.  So we FINALLY got to the YSA dinner, and we strolled in at 6.30pm, announced our arrival, and got stuck in to the food. It was pretty tasty if I do say so myself, although we didn't get to eat any of Dale's carrots or Collette's corn, as it was all gone!! (I think this is a good sign guys!!)  And to top the yummy dinner off we had DELICIOUS desserts, lots of different cheescakes and Pav's. Yummo!