At Caves House, on Wednesday and Saturday evenings, kids can meet Santa inside a cave, grownups enjoy that special Christmas ambiance and Chisolm’s Restaurant serves festive dinner.

Plus on July 26, Caves House will host a special concert by acapella song group, Soulfood - Book Now!

www.jenolancaves.org.au/yulefest-christmas-in-july/?sdid=71

Soulfood acappella offers a diverse menu of motown, soul and retro-pop songs, performed in a unique way, by a seamless 50-voice ensemble. They have created beautiful and complex arrangements of well-loved songs.

Formed in 2004, Soulfood was a finalist in Channel Seven's Battle of the Choirs in 2008, and is the three-time winner of the John Lamble Australasian Open Choral Championships. This acappella group features an incredible blend of high quality voices - full of energy and soul. See them in the Kanangra-Boyd Gallery at Caves House.

They have lots of videos on YouTube.  Click here for a YouTube sample.

www.jenolancaves.org.au/celebrate-yulefest-with-the-music-of-soulfood-acapella/?sdid=81

Caves House was built in stages from 1879 to 1926. Significant for past, present and future generations, it was heritage listed in 2004.

The English provincial appearance of Caves House is a magical contrast to the surrounding mountains, massive limestone arches and craggy cliffs. It was built from Jenolan's 430-million year old Silurian limestone - one of many features that make it utterly unique.

As the building is the work of a prominent colonial architect, Walter Liberty Vernon, who was extremely influential in the development of Australian architecture, Caves House is significant by association. It illustrates the considerable human activity necessary to provide tourist accommodation in those early days. Vernon had to employ innovative methods to solve problems posed by a major building project in an extremely remote setting.

Caves House was built to service one of the earliest protected sites of natural environmental heritage in the world, declared a protected area in 1866. Water and sewage innovations are of significant historical importance, crucial to the development of the remote area. In 1889, Australia's first hydro-electricity plant was built at Jenolan.

It is also significant that, initially built for the wealthy, Caves House became much more accessible over the years - an example of the growth of Australia's 'classless' society.

These days, at Jenolan, you can stay in modern guestrooms - in our Mountain Lodge or one of our cottages. But it's fun and romantic to stay in an atmospheric guestroom in the original Caves House hotel building, stroll through its magnificent foyer, guest lounge and grand dining room (now Chisolm's Restaurant), sit by a log fire and sip a delicious wine.

For full details on the evolution of Caves House see the Wikipedia article.

www.jenolancaves.org.au/accommodation/caves-house/

Even in Sydney, many people don't realise that it snows every winter in the Blue Mountains, Oberon and on the hills around Jenolan Caves, due to the high altitude.  Our snow photos were very popular on our Facebook Page. There will be more snow before Spring, so drive carefully on your way to Jenolan.

Winter is the perfect time to get fit by walking through caves and climbing stairs and doing our bushwalks.  You only need to take a quick look at our website to realise the huge range of physical activities that we offer.

Medical research suggest that people with diabetes who walk a half hour daily, or 3-4 hours per week, can reduce their chance of heart attack, stroke and death by 50 percent. There are plenty of other benefits of walking, including decreased depression and anxiety, decreased chance of falling and fracture, increased bone density, improvement in arthritic symptoms, maintenance of ideal body weight and cholesterol and lowered blood pressure.  

See the following online articles:

• Walking is Just What the Doctor Ordered
• Walking May have Profound Effects for People with Kidney Disease
• Why Taking a Stroll Can Have Philosophical Benefits

See our LinkedIn page, for more articles about caves, travel, photography, world heritage, health, platypus and more.

www.jenolancaves.org.au/get-fit-and-have-fun/

Back in February, the CSIRO announced the development of an 'interactive online environment' to help school students learn about the natural world.

They said, "Our computer scientists are working with science education experts from 3P Learning to develop immersive learning environments for their latest platform IntoScience that will mirror real-life places. This allows students across Australia to explore these locations from their home or classroom whilst improving their science skills along the way."

Well, now 3P Learning is trialing the Jenolan Caves Investigation Program. They need schools to participate.  Your school can be an IntoScience Pilot School.  

The Jenolan Caves Investigation Program is a string of activities which students complete as they make their way around the virtual cave system. Their primary goal is to discover how the caves have formed, but many avenues of investigation are open to the students, such as classifying local animals, discovering important artefacts from the cave’s history and learning about the crystal formations found in the caves.

Click here, to find out more, and register for the pilot program.

It will be Australia's biggest virtual school excursion - National Science Week's biggest online learning event!  

We hope this online teaching tool will inspire school groups to visit Jenolan to see the real thing.

www.3plearning.com/jenolan-caves-worlds-valuable-education-resources/

Discovered in 1903, the River Cave is the most extensive show cave at Jenolan and includes some of its most famous features, including the 'Minaret', the 'Grand Column' and the 'Queen's Canopy', as well as part of the River Styx and mirror-like 'Pool of Reflections'.

As well as negotiating 1,298 stair steps, visitors must climb steep ladders, as they wind their way through this amazing labyrinth, full of mind-boggling sights, over 2 hours.

Until 1923 when a small bridge was built, a section of river in this cave was crossed by a small boat. 

In 2010, the River Cave tour was revitalised using the latest lighting technology.  So now you to see the cave formations as they have never been seen before. The environmentally friendly lighting system uses less electricity and minimises heat output, conserving the sensitive cave environment. 

Over the last few months, we have been replacing the old hand rails with new, burnished steel ones - much safer and more eco-friendly.

The River Cave tour takes smaller groups of visitors, and for safety reasons, children must be at least 6 years old. Wear practical clothing and non-slip shoes. Compared with our other show cave tours, the River Cave is a  bit more 'strenuous', due to the many stairs and ladders.  But it is well worth it, and it is (you might guess) one of my personal favourites!

www.jenolancaves.org.au/the-caves/show-cave-tours/river-cave/

The visit served 2 purposes - a school holiday family outing and an inspection of 1 km of new, burnished steel handrails in the River Cave. The material is non-reactive, resistant to corrosion and will have a life span far beyond any other material - 50 years.

The project to replace the hand rails was funded by a $743,000 Environmental Trust grant to Jenolan Caves.

"The new stable stainless steel hand railings will not only protect the sensitive cave environment but allow us to eliminate the ongoing costs of mitigating the impacts the old galvanised steel had on the caves system,” Mr Stokes said.

"It is estimated that this would have had a cumulative cost in excess of $700,000 over the next ten years, which can now be spent on improving the area - benefiting both the environment and people visiting the famous caves.

"The Jenolan Caves Reserve Trust has committed to redirecting these significant savings to a 10-year environmental offset program that will allow them to undertake valuable works such as bush regeneration and restoring degraded cave formations.

“The funding will allow Jenolan to undertake weed management in and around the cave’s systems as well as other innovative environmental projects such the installation of energy efficient lighting to reduce energy consumption and heat impacts on the cave formations.

“The JCRT has come up with a very unique approach to utilize the Environmental Trust grant money in a way that will keep giving to the caves system and the public for the next decade and I congratulate them on a fantastic project,” Mr Stokes said.

In 2003, Jana Pittman became the youngest 400m hurdles World Champion in history (male or female). In 2007, at the Osaka World Championships, she won the 400 m Hurdles. In 2014, after an injury, Jana turned to bobsledding at the Soshi Winter Olympics and became the first Australian woman to compete in both the Summer and Winter Olympic Games. Jana currently balances being a full time Olympic athlete, medical student, personal trainer and mother, plus numerous public speaking engagements.See Jana's website

Thomas Keneally is a very well known Australian novelist, playwright and author of non-fiction. He is best known for writing Schindler's Ark, the Booker Prize-winning novel of 1982 which was inspired by the efforts of Poldek Pfefferberg, a Holocaust survivor. His book was adapted to Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. In 1983, he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO). He is an Australian Living Treasure.

Australia’s Federation Guard is regularly tasked with providing ceremonial support for various events. They go on lots of adventurous and interesting training, so that Guardsmen (and Guardswomen) can build teamwork, maintain peak physical fitness and provide variety in the ceremonial training schedule.

If you bring two full-paying adults (or a family) to Jenolan Caves, from outside the Greater Blue Mountains Area, present your Rewards Card at our ticket office, and we will give you a FREE ticket to a guided tour of one of our spectacular show caves. See all the deals.

You can go to other websites for information about accommodation and restaurants.  However, the Blue Mountains Attractions Group focuses only on 14 of the best attractions in the Blue Mountains.  Take a look!

www.bluemountainsattractions.com.au/home.html

Stay at Jenolan Caves House!  Enjoy the relaxed pace of country towns, charming heritage villages and cafes.

www.jenolancaves.org.au/visitor-info/exciting-selfdrive-itineraries/