Jersey Cave

Useful Information

Location:	77 km from Tumut, 109 km from Cooma. 6.5 km dirt road, in good order and well maintained. (-35.723503, 148.486992)
Open:	All year daily 11, 13. Closed 25-DEC. [2004]
Fee:	Adults AUD 13, Children AUD 8.50. Vehicle Park Entry Fee AUD 3. [2004]
Classification:	Karst cave
Light:	Incandescent Electric Light System
Dimension:	A=975 m asl
Guided tours:	L=135 m, St=217, D=90 min.
Photography:
Accessibility:
Bibliography:
Address:	Yarrangobilly Caves, P.O.Box 472, Tumut. NSW. 2720, Tel: +61-64-54-9597, Fax: +61-64-54-9598. E-mail:
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 hours tour includes 217 steps and many interesting gray and black speleothems. The cave is estimated to be 750,000 years old.

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.

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 is dated with the C14-method, telling 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. This 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.