Caption
Jenolan Caves in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, Australia, are believed to be the world's oldest caves. According to a 2006 scientific analysis, Jenolan Caves began forming these incredible crystalline memories 340 million years ago - that's 275 million years before the dinosaurs became extinct. They have been protected as a natural reserve since 1867 and the present hotel was built in the 1920s.
In 2009 this cave was re-opened with a network of hundreds of LED lights and an air-lock entrance to both display and protect this world treasure. There are 12 main caves with daily guided tours. Guides also take enthusiasts on adventure cave explorations to some of the less accessible 300 caves.
As I walked through the kilometers of caves, I could not help but think of the wilderness of living crystal sculptures as earth memories, long forgotten, sprinkled here and there with fossils of sea creatures that lived on this planet long long ago, forming a world wide web of existence that continues unbroken to this very moment.