Julius River Swallet

This post is a bit of a re-visit of an older post (Julius River Caves) not because we are running out of places to look at but because the last few times we have been here we have completely missed all the good bits.

This would have to be one of the most spectacular river systems that we have found to date it has everything from waterfalls (Julius River Waterfalls) caves and a massive Swallet (Underground water system).  So we started the walk in the usual spot and it wasn’t long before the camera came out to get a few shots of a massive clump of what I think is polypore bracket. Slim Mould.JPG

Then not much further up White Fungi

A nice white one that pretty much looked like a flower.  Not much further up the ‘Dry’ River bed you come across the first little cave (JR 5) there isn’t a lot in this cave in the way of formations but it is full of cave crickets.JR4JR4 1Cave Cricket.JPG

We have previously seen glow worms and also a pure white yabby or crustation in here before but weren’t lucky enough this time.JR4 2.JPG Once you leave the cave and turn right you are already within meters of the Swallet.SwalletSwallet 3

Whilst here I thought I would make use of natures tripod and get some long exposure shots.Swallet 1At this stage I was still up in the air about whether or not I like this effect that was until I got home and seen this shot. Swallet 1 (2) I’m going to go out on a limb and say this is probably my best photo to date although it would have been better if it was facing the Swallet. From here you head upstream and come across another obstacle in the river.  I think it may have been caused by an archway or something collapsing but not 100% all I know for sure is it is pretty spectacular to look at and forms a mini waterfall.BlockageBlockage 1

This is only about 10m wide and the difference in the river level is about 4 m Blockage 3

For whatever reason I didn’t get a photo of the difference but it looked pretty good.  Now all you have to do is turn around and there is a big cliff face and the Arch.Arch 1Arch 2

Also in the area is another cave JR 1, like JR 4 it isn’t highly decorated but is probably the better of the 2 if you can put up with the monstrous cave spiders.Cave SpiderCave Spider 1 It was a bit daunting having my face within 200mm of these spiders to get the photo but I am told they are harmless hmmm.  If spiders aren’t your thing I wouldn’t go in any cave in Tassie because most I have been in are full of them. There was also much nicer things in the cave to photograph also JR1JR 1 1JR1 3JR1 2

This small stuff was like Velcro if you brushed against it with your cloths it would nearly stop you in you tracks.

From here we thought we would go and check out the outflow of the Swallet and then this would cover about everything that we know of in the area. The walk around to the Outflow was a bit of a challenge as the walk was on the side of a steep slippery hill and yep you guessed it Jacinta spent most of the time on her arse.  It was also pretty hard to tell if you where getting close as the water was pretty calm coming out of the hill (Unlike the Inflow).OutflowOutflow 1Phantom Light

Whilst taking photo’s I seen in the corner of my eye something changing colour in the water and at first just ignored it as I thought I was seeing things but then I couldn’t not take no notice of it any more so I concentrated on it a bit more and there must have been a gap of hole in the rocks somewhere letting the light through (although there wasn’t much if any sun today).

After getting a little freaked out by the Phantom light we decided to head back and come across some more fungi Yellow Fungi

and then to keep the theme of yellow going we came across a bright yellow worm.Yellow Worm

Hope you enjoyed

Cheers

Brendan & Jacinta

Full Video here

Leave a Reply

Powered by WordPress.com.

Up ↑

%d