Yarrangobilly Caves and Thermal Pool

Apologies for missing my post last week, but I was out adventuring with my sister! We went down to the Snowy Mountains for the weekend and had a great time exploring the area. When we drove back up toward Sydney, we took a different route, one that passed by Yarrangobilly Caves. The drive from Jindabyne to Yarrangobilly is just under 2 hours and it is a beautiful drive. We even saw some wild horses near the side of the road.

Once you turn off the highway you start heading down hill on a gravel road – it is a bit of an adventure to avoid the potholes, but worth the trip once you get the bottom. Once at the Visitor Centre you can purchase self-tour tickets for some of the caves along with your park day pass. We elected not to purchase the self-tour tickets, but to just visit the entrance to one of the caves and then do a short walk along the river to the thermal pool.

The cave that we visited the entrance to is the South Glory Cave, which starts inside the Glory Arch. As you come around the side of a hill and catch your first glimpse of the entrance, it is a spectacular sight. The walk continues on past the front of the entrance, but we stopped to appreciate it for a bit before turning around and joining the River Walk. The walk quickly makes its way downhill and joins the Yarrangobilly River. My favourite part of the whole visit would probably have to be the walk along the river. The water was so blue and set in the green rocky hillsides just brought me so much joy!

It was a short walk to the thermal pool, which was very beautiful (although they were doing work on the track at the time, so it probably wasn’t as picturesque as it usually is). But the pool itself had the most incredible shades of green (thanks to the algae all over the bottom and sides) and turquoise. Because it is a thermal pool for some reason I was expecting it to be really warm (it is always 27 degrees, year round), but it was actually refreshingly cool after the warm walk down. In winter, I know that 27 degrees would be nice and toasty, but in summer it is just a slightly warm pool.

I would love to visit in winter when there is snow around, but for now, I am glad that I got to visit. We only had a short dip before retracing our steps and making our way back up to the car. We then made our way back up the winding, bumpy gravel road to the main highway and continued on our way.

It was well worth a stop and I would love to spend more time exploring caves on another trip.