chillagoe-mungana caves national park

The caves are far away away but after the drive, the enthusiasm and knowldge of the tour guide (bob you were great!) as well as the sheer scale of them make them well worth the visit! Doable self drive in a day from the tablelands or even cairns! (campervans beware the last 10km is dirt road) it is a long day but the caves are pretty unbelievable with loads of natural formations I'd never seen/heard of before, (again bob you were great, good fun imaginaning new names for shapes in the rock too!) something different from north Queensland if you have the time and dont mind a 5-6h round trip driving!

What a natural beauty. Most of the caves are by a guided tour which is well worth the cost and the guide is so informative it extends the experience. There are some self guided caves as well but would recommend doing at least one guided cave tour for the experience.There is a LOT of walking so wear good shoes, take plenty of water and not a pram as there are a lot of stairs both leading up to and inside the caves. Although it is a 3 hour drive from Cairns and the roads may not always be great it is well worth the trip. There is so much to explore in Chillagoe with the caves being a top attraction.

Just amazing, natural cave. Parks and Wildlife have done a great job enable visitors to see this amazing landscape!!

THE CAVES:Three caves are accessible only via park ranger-guided tours: Donna Cave (9:00-10:00), Trezkinn Cave (11:00-11:45), and Royal Arch Cave (13:30-15:00) ($49 for all three tours). As others have mentioned, Eddie is a personable and informative guide (though if you do more than one tour, you'll hear the same jokes several times). These caves have well-maintained stairs and walkways and artificial lighting / torches provided, which make them more suitable for families with children. Along the way, you'll probably see spiders and bats lurking among the mesmerizing limestone formations.Since the tours finish in the early afternoon, there's time to wind up your day with a visit to the historic Chillagoe Smelters, the "Bogey" Swimming Hole, and/or the Weir.If you prefer a more off-the-beaten path experience, there are three caves you can explore on your own: Bauhinia Cave, Pompeii Cave, and Archways. Bring sturdy shoes with good grip, a torch, and water.The lack of expert information on these self-guided explorations is more than made up for by the freedom to go at your own pace, the feeling of quiet wonder as you ponder the caves in (probable) solitude, and a sense of excitement as if you were discovering the caves for the first time (after you pass the well-marked signs at the entrance).You can easily spend 30-50 minutes in each cave, depending on how thoroughly you like to explore and examine.BALANCING ROCK:An easy walk from the Donna Cave car park, the Balancing Rock makes for some nice photos, especially at sunrise or sunset. Budget about an hour.MUNGANA ABORIGINAL ART SITE:If you go to the Archways, you might as well stop along the way to see some aboriginal rock art and explore the rock outcroppings here. A nearly inaccessible "ring" of tall rocks surprisingly opens into a semi-flat open space with a large tree, various other plants, and boulders.

If you love caves make sure you do as many as you can. The guided tours are fantastic and well worth the money but the self guided caves are great too. Take water and a torch with good sandals or walking shoes. The caves themselves are lovely and cool but We went in summer as we love the heat. Summer is a great time to go to avoid the tourists and enjoy absolute peace and quiet.

The Chillagoe Caves are spectacular. We drove from Mareeba to Chillagoe, and it took about 2 hours. The road is unfenced, so there are many cattle on the roadside, which you need to be weary of. We arrived early to the Hub to purchase our tickets for the 9am tour. The staff at the counter were extremely Friendly and helpful. I was really impressed with the information and displays at The Hub. We visited the Donna and Royal Arch Caves. Both were spectacular and my six year old son was thoroughly entertained the whole time, and easily able to complete the tour physically.I can't say enough kind words about our tour guide Eddie. He was both knowledgeable and entertaining. Eddie answered all of my 6 year old son's questions thoroughly and with a smile. It was wonderful to have a guide with so much personal history attached to the area and the caves also. He is a credit to the park.As one of the caves was closed, we had time to spare between tours. We had brought our lunch from home, however even on a Sunday there were a few different places open, including a local takeaway, where we could have purchased food. We went to a local swimming area, The Bogey Hole. The water was beautifully cool and clear, and with picnic table on the bank it was the perfect place to have lunch and cool off. I highly recommend this if you have kids who are used to swimming in pools! They will love it.Both of the caves we saw were equally beautiful and impressive in their own way. If you have time, Definately see both. The tours are really affordable, educational and absolutely breathtaking!

We left Cairns at 5am to start the trek to Chilligoe. Conflicting reports on how long the trip takes had us leaving a bit extra time, but it took us about 2 and a half hours. lots of roos, cattle and other wildlife on the roads so be careful. Also last 50 km mostly dirt road.To tour the caves you need to buy tickets at the hub. Easy to find, opens at 8am with the tour of Donna cave starting at 9am.There are usually 3 caves you can do a guided tour in, at 9am, 11am and 1.30pm. each cave only has one tour a day normally, so if you are late you miss out.there is also 2 other caves you can do a self guided tour in, make sure you have good torches and sturdy shoes and are physically fit, no cell phone service out here and a long way to go to get help.Some very big caverns inside, really words cannot describe the feeling of walking around under the ground. worth the drive if you are in the Cairns area

‘The Ultimate Outback in a Day!!!’ claims the Billy Teas Chillagoe Caves & Outback brochure. Well, not quite. There’s no Town Like Alice or even a hint of Uluru. But the dry country inland from Cairns, beyond the Great Dividing Range, is certainly a change from the wet tropic coast. With the informative Finlay as our driver/guide, we crossed the McAllister Ranges to our first stop, Jabiru Safari Lodge on the Mareeba Wetlands, formed from the overflow of the irrigation channels from Tinaroo Dam, on the Barron River. An electric boat ride, bird spotting, plus good coffee and morning tea, then we were on our way again. We had a bit of eco tourism – economy rather than ecology – in the Mareeba-Dimbulah area. This used to be tobacco country. They couldn’t compete on world markets, so they switched to a variety of crops. Mango trees were here, there and everywhere, all trimmed to a height that pickers can reach from ground level. Sugar cane has become a major crop, and there is a new mill at Mareeba. Other crops included avocados, pawpaws, and tea tree oil.My main interest in the tour was a return visit to the abandoned Chillagoe copper smelter. I’d spent a whole day there once, exploring and photographing the wreckage. I couldn’t do that again, the Billy Tea people told me. The site is riddled with asbestos, and worse, and nowadays you can only look at it from the viewing platform, at a safe distance. ‘Serious injury, disease or death could result from entering this area’, the National Parks website warns. Now they tell me! After lunch at the Post Office Hotel, so named when Chillagoe had a post office, we were off to Chillagoe Caves. A national parks ranger led us through the Royal Arch cave, pointing out the fossilized remains of ancient coral reefs. This whole area was once under the sea.On the way back to Cairns, we stopped off at the Mount Uncle Distillery, for a sampling of their sugar-cane based delights. Its cafe is made from timber recycled form the former Walsh River Bridge.It’s a strenuous trip, with 500 kilometres or so to cover, a lot of it on dirt roads, with serious steps inside the cave. But we all survived happily, and were back in Cairns on schedule.

Had a great day driving out to Chillagoe and checking out the various caves, lovely to see some of the back country outside Port Douglas / Cairns.

Chillagoe is a little over 200km from Cairns. Driving on a well maintained road for most of the journey, except for about 30km you have to drive on a gravel road. So 4wheel drive is well advised, especially if the road is flooded . This is the real outback and Ants mound country.Chillagoe itself is a small town now with not more than 300 people, a far cry from the heyday of mining and the Old State Smelters and the soaring population of more than 10,000 inhabitants. Arriving to Chillagoe, and to the Hub, that`s the all in one center for:Information, Cave Tours, Post Office, Library, Centerlink, and of course if you want to relieve yourself, toilets are in the back.Booked a cave tour, and as we arrived a bit early we went to explore other attractions like the Balancing Rock, which we found fascinating and marvelous work of nature.Back to the cave, here we are almost 22 people mostly retired Aussies with their 4wheel drives, doing the ultimate Aussie dream, traveling around Australia and exploring this wonderful continent. People driving from as far South as Melbourne.Today we entered Royal Arch Cave, a guided 2hour tour equipped with a torch, and good spirited guide who grew up in these places. Its a fascinating underworld, with even more fascinating rock formations as old as humanity itself if not older.There are tracks all along the cave, and even a platform where one can sit and look up and admire the scenery. Some very tiny passages we went through, a bit of crawling and bending is required, otherwise there is alternate track for those claustrophobics. All in all it was a very good tour, well worth a visit, especially those who haven`t had any outback experience, the drive itself from Cairns was just magnificent, and the small little towns we passed through, and the Mangoes and Avocado orchards along the way. Might spot some Kangaroos sitting in the middle of the road, as we did.After all this is the wild continent, with all its mystery and beauty. All my love to Australia.Thanks heaps to my friend over the years Rodny Green for the driving, sightseeing, and for his patience. Without his insistence on me coming to Cairns I would have never experienced such wonderful time. This turned out to be one hell of a holiday. Yes Fiji can wait.

A wide range of caves to visit, some without guides. Fabulous guide Luke (beware of the jokes :-), so much to learn about flora and fauna. They are an above ground cave made from a below sea material-fascinating!

I went to the Royal Arch caves, lights were provided by the tour guide.. Informative talk and tour fairly easy to get around caves with the stairways and paths provided, some bending down required as many low places in the caves.. Saw some fossils, and learnt alot about the formations within the cave system

These caves are worth visiting and a great example of Tower karst. We visited the Royal Arch cave and the Trezkinn cave both having some good formations. The tour guide did a great job on both tours.

We booked the 11 am tour at the Chillagoe Hub the previous day to ensure we didn't drive all the way out there and miss out. I was surprised at the number of people on our tour there were over 30 which meant it took quite a while for everyone to climb down all the steps and the guide had to wait for everyone to make their way down before she could start telling us about the caves. It would probably be better if they capped the number of people on each tour to 20. Otherwise it proved to be an interesting tour. We saw micro bats and lots of stalactites and stalagmites which were illuminated. After finishing the cave tour we walked to the balancing rock which was quite impressive.

Need to book tour at the information centre in town. These limestone caves are locked and cannot be entered without a guide. You are required to carry a torch (loan included in tour) and light up the areas rather than have the caves illuminated permanently. So nice and cool inside, even saw micro bats. Guide was so knowledgable and made the tour.