Wellington Caves

We drove down to Canberra to see the family last weekend and, on the way, stopped off at the Wellington caves. This is something we had always wanted to do and, being less pushed for time than usual on the 10 hour journey, we took the opportunity. Different caves are open at different times of the day, and when we arrived the only convenient option was to take a guided tour around a phosphate mine which was operational in around about 1910 - a century ago - but soon abandoned as a financial disaster because of the low quality of the ore. The phosphate was also mixed in with a lot of calcite, which is what one expect in a limestone formation.

Anyway, I have seen a lot of caves which look like each other, but this was very different and interesting. Apart from learning a lot about calcite and phosphate, the caves had interesting origins and contents. To start with, they were close to the surface and the surface had lots of big cracks worn away by rain (much wetter in the past). As the result, lots of animals fell in and the floors and walls were littered with rich fossil beds containing the mixed-up remains of many large and now (in some cases locally) extinct mega fauna from up to 1 million years ago.

We also saw the awful conditions in which the miners tried to get phosphate out of all sort recesses, mostly with little success. The attached photos show fossil beds, some calcite / phosphate deposits, and a view inside the mine towards a sink hole.





AS