Jersey Cave

Useful Information

Location:	50 Yarrangobilly Caves Road, Yarrangobilly, NSW 2720. 77 km from Tumut, 109 km from Cooma. 6.5 km dirt road, in good order and well maintained. Jersey Cave carpark. (-35.723503, 148.486992)
Open:	Visitor Centre: All year daily 9-17. Closed 25-DEC. [2024]
Fee:	Adults AUD 26, Children (6-16) AUD 22, Children (0-5) free, Seniors AUD AUD 22, Veterans AUD 22, Families (2+2) AUD 82. Vehicle Park Entry Fee AUD 4. [2024]
Classification:	Karst Cave
Light:	Incandescent
Dimension:	A=975 m asl
Guided tours:	L=135 m, St=217, D=90 min, MinAge=5.
Photography:
Accessibility:	no
Bibliography:
Address:	Yarrangobilly Caves Visitor Centre, 50 Yarrangobilly Caves Road, Yarrangobilly, NSW 2720, Tel: +61-64-54-9597. E-mail: Booking, Tel: +61-1300-072-757.
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

1861	Jersey Cave discovered by graziers.
1891	Jersey Cave explored by Charles Kerry and named after the Governor of New South Wales, Lord Jersey.
1892	Jersey Cave opened to the public by Lord Jersey.

Description

Jersey Cave is definitely the main cave at Yarrangobilly. The 1.5-hour tour includes 217 steps and many interesting gray and black speleothems. It has some spectacular speleothems, like Cleopatra’s Needle, a 4 m high pilar. There are black and grey speleothems, which are rather uncommon. In this case they are a result of black coal from bushfires.

The speleothems of this cave are an important archive of the local climate. The bush fires are rather rare at Yarrangobilly, because of the comparably high moisture of the area. There was a fire in 2003, and before in 1909. Those fires are recorded in the cave, as it traps bushfire smoke more than any other cave in Australia. There is a visual record of bushfires for almost 500,000 years. Carbon layers in the speleothems, which are quite attractive, are also important to climatologists. The carbon was dated with the C14-method, which told the scientists about four distinct periods during which fires took place. The first was 440,000 years ago, the last ended 18,000 years ago. These periods were several thousand years long, but widely spaced with periods without fires. Typically, the fires appear during interglacial periods, times of relatively high temperature.

Jersey Cave was named after the Governor of New South Wales, Lord Jersey. He opened it to the public only one year after its exploration.