Lake Cave - Margaret River - Western Australia

The Margaret River area is well known for its many limestone caves. Several are open to the public, including Lake Cave that's situated near Conto Campground, just off Caves Road, to the southwest of Margaret River Town. A huge sinkhole formed when a part of the cave roof collapsed. This has become the entrance to a deeper section of the cave. The lake in the cave had gradually been diminishing over time, and this was ascribed to the lowering of the water table in the area. But in 2021 a huge bushfire roared through the area, removing much of the vegetation. This resulted in much more water making its way down into the cave, and by 2023 the lake was at the highest levels it had been for many years. The fire also destroyed some of the wooden stairway leading down to Lake Cave. The cave was closed for some time afterwards, while the stairs were rebuilt. The first European known to have seen the cave was Frances Bussell in 1867. She'd been out riding in the bush looking for stray stock, and came across the large sinkhole. She told her family about it, but as she couldn't remember the exact location, it was to be another 30 years before the cave was found again. This time it was found by her brother John Bussell and his friend Tim Connolly. They used ropes to descend into the sinkhole, and found there was a deeper section, leading down into what today is called Lake Cave. It was realised fairly quickly that the cave had good potential for tourism, and in 1901 it was opened to the public for the first time. Initially it was named Queen of the Earth, but later was renamed to something more befitting the lake that lies within it. It's the deepest of all the tourist caves in the Margaret River area at 62 metres. The cave has been known to flood in the past, and it's certainly one place I would not consider venturing during periods of very high rainfall. Severe floods were recorded in 1924 and 1941, with the flood in 1924 taking 8 months to clear. The speleotherms, or cave decorations, include straws, stalactites, stalagmites, columns, shawls, helictites and flowstone. They're made from calcite, which is a crystalline form of calcium carbonate. As rainwater penetrates the limestone, some of the rock is dissolved. This creates a solution of calcium carbonate. When the solution enters the cave, it's redeposited in its crystalline form as calcite. Straws are long and thin and have hollow centres. Stalactites hang from the cave roof, and stalagmites rise up from the cave floor. If you have trouble remembering which hang down and which go up, remember the phrase stalactites hang tight to the ceiling and stalagmites might reach the ceiling. Columns are formed when a stalactite and a stalagmite join together. Shawls and flowstone are pretty much self-explanatory, but helictites defy gravity and grow in many different directions. There are some very rare cave-dwelling creatures that call Lake Cave home. Some are not dependent on the lake, and these are known scientifically as troglofauna. The creatures that depend on the lake are known as stogofauna. In the year 2000, there were some 23 different species of stogofauna recorded in the cave, but due to dropping water levels, this had declined to just six species in 2006. Lake Cave is thought to be about a million years old. Apparently, this is not particularly old for a cave, and it's also a fast-moving cave in terms of the growth of the formations. Usually, something like a stalactite increases by one inch every hundred years. Some of the formations in Lake Cave have been measured at four inches over a similar period of time. Even the name Lake Cave is not technically correct. The water in the cave is actually a very slow-moving stream that runs down on an incline towards the sea. I guess stream cave just doesn't have the same ring to it as Lake Cave does. Getting down into the cave, you'll drop down 350 steps on the various staircases. You'll certainly know about those steps on the way back up. If you're not physically up to walking down into the cave, there's a good walkthrough replica of part of a cave in the rear of the visitor centre, and a large photograph of the lake in the cave, to give you some idea of what the real thing looks like.