Exploring the Pilliga - Part 2 - The Salt Cave

Continuing on our recent trip to the Pilliga Scrub, after our wander around Dandry Gorge, we headed further north to The Salt Cave.  There is a nice picnic area there, where we had our lunch.  We were impressed by the National Parks ranger who was working tirelessly to keep all the picnic areas and loos clean and tidy.

After we were once again fed and watered, we went exploring.  Mick had been there before, but I hadn't.

You can see the opening of the cave to the right of the above photo.

Legend has it that the cave used to run for about a mile into the ground and that there were stalactites of salt hanging from the roof.  The early settlers used to collect the salt to preserve their meat and for general purposes.  Apparently, by building a fire lookout tower on the top of the rocky outcrop the cave collapsed. It is not known how much of this is fact or what is just folk lore.  

What is known is that the local aboriginals would have used the cave for shelter. 

There is a fair bit of graffiti at the entrance of the cave, some of it quite old.

There have been fire lookout towers on the site since the 1930s, with a small hut built at the base of the rocky outcrop, where men were stationed for the duration of the fire season.  Over the years there have been many large fires in the area.

You can actually climb the current look out tower.  Smithy counted 80 steps.

It is rather a long way down.  I'm obviously getting better with my fear of heights.  

As you can see by our coats, it was somewhat chilly up there and extremely windy.  Mick is lucky he didn't lose his hat.

The view is spectacular.  This is looking back towards the Warrunbungles.  The whole 360 degrees was just a view of trees on a flat plain. Incredible.

The Pilliga Scrub is about ninety kms long by seventy kms wide. When you look at a map, there are several different National Park areas as well as several State Forest sections. It looks featureless, when you look at it on this scale, but as we saw, there is lots to see and explore.

Once we descended to the ground, we noticed a sign for a bird walk of approximately 2 kms.  

As you can see, the landscape here is completely different to Dandry Gorge.  The soil was really sandy.  A fire had been through in recent years and it was only starting to regenerate.  A severe drought for the last couple of years wouldn't have helped either.

It was really pretty seeing all the wild flowers.  I loved how they were nice, neat plants.  Wouldn't they look good in a garden.  Mind you, if they were planted in our clay soil and had to experience our severe frosts they may not do so well.

We also notice a couple of these weird fungi coming out of the ground.

We noticed some different flowers here too.

We had no idea where our walk would take us and  were just enjoying looking at the scenery, when we met a couple coming the other way.  The lady quite bluntly informed us that there was no point in going on, as there was only a muddy dam and one lousy wood duck!  

Eventually, we came to the muddy dam.  We looked at things a little differently.  There was water in the dam!  After the drought, isn't that wonderful.  Yes, there was one wood duck.  I suppose if you had expected an idyllic lake teaming with birdlife you may be disappointed, but we had no such expectations.

We actually found the dam rather interesting.  We noticed lots of little bubbles coming up through the water.  It wasn't like those made by a tortoise.  Smithy informed us that it would actually be natural gas, as there is lots of gas under the Pilliga, which is looking to be tapped, to much concern from the locals.

We did comment that we hardly saw any birds during our day out.  Up near the salt caves we did see flocks of  white browed wood swallows, but not much else.  Maybe the cool overcast weather was keeping them quiet.

By then time was marching on, so we returned to our camp at Baradine.

We had to finish our day as we started, so a nice afternoon tea of scones with jam and cream and home made bikkies.  Yes, we did rough it.  No, we felt absolutely no guilt, as we had been rather active during the day.

Miss Jules and I have decided that we will have to explore Mt Kaputar, over near Narrabri, next spring.  The top of the mountain has alpine plants, so there would be lots to see.  We will have to work on the boys.

There is still more of the Pilliga to explore, so I will be back soon.