Despite planning a trip well there are times Allthego has found where you just get things wrong and you end up in a place that is not what you thought it was going to be like. In this post Yarrangobilly Village is shortened to YV to save the fingers. YV is a few kilometres from Yarrangobilly Caves, YC. Now, YC was our objective for this stop and we had planned a three night stopover here at YV to visit the caves and do a little exploring.

For some reason Allthego had thought YV was a caravan park with power, water a dump point and fuel. I suppose it was the word ‘village’ that put him on this track. Well there was a village here back in the 1860s, the surrounding countryside was grazed, timber, gold mined at Kiandra etc. But over the next hundred years fortunes rose and fell, population declined and in 1969 the Post Office closed and the area became a national park. YV also spread across the river flats on the other side of the road.

Today, nothing remains except one house (can be rented from National Parks?) built in 1898 (has had some renovation since) overlooking the camping area and Yarrangobilly River, YR. So, we were a little short on the facilities we had anticipated.

Despite the initial negative vibe YV is a great stop over point along the Snowy Mountains Highway, about midway between Tumut and Cooma.

After setting up the site beside YR Allthego thought he would test the Long Drop facility, the onboard loo was nearly full and had to be nursed, along with our water, for the next couple of days to allow those now common early morning in the dark visits. Walking up the hill Allthego noticed a lady emerge from the facility and thought to himself ‘now I know her’. Allthego sauntered across and had a closer look. And said ‘ I know you’, she looked quizzically and I continued ‘Debbie’. She took her sunnies off and also had a closer look, paused a bit and said ‘Russell’. My cousin Debbie! Haven’t seen her for some time.

Her mother, my father’s sister, was 100 last September. She had just stopped by to use the loo and was on her way home to Dalgetty, on the Snowy River. We had a chat for a while before she and Ron, her husband, had to head off. One for the road!

The turn off to YC is about a 7 km drive from YV, there is then a one way 6 km one lane road/track to the YC Visitor’s Centre. The track is narrow in places but quite well graded, can’t bring a van down to the bottom.
The caves were first discovered by Europeans in the mid 1800s and became over the years a tourist attraction. The National Park people have set up a system of mostly guided entrance only to the caves. A one way ring road makes a circuit of the popular spots.

Numerous walks can take you to more remote spots and down into the gorge along the YR. We did a tour of Jillabenan (‘Dark Hole’) cave, which was only found by Europeans in 1910. It is very well preserved and presented, some amazing formations. Great tour.

The cave is a ‘perched’ cave sitting high up the ridge above the present course of the river. It is thought to be 2-3 million years old, whereas the caves lower down near the river are only 100,000 years or so old.

Allthego took the rather steep 700 metre path down to the thermal pool beside the river.

This pool is fed by an underground spring at the rate of 100,000 litres an hour, the water seeps in at the bottom of the pool and then flows out the top and down to the river. It is a pleasant 27 degrees and crystal clear. The walk back up the hill a little testing, but all ok! The road out of the gorge was also one way back to the top.

Back at the campsite we enjoyed a nightly fire to keep warm before bed, it hit -1 one morning. Bit chilly!

We now move on to Adaminaby and will need to manage the fuel which has got quite low, it is about 60km.