Sepia Saturday 183: 29th June 2013 - Caves

The first picture in this post is one taken by my father of my mother standing and looking at the harbour of Polperro in Cornwall.  

This week's Sepia Saturday post is "grottoes, tunnels, caverns, potholes or mines".

I thought this would be easy peasy as in my youth we spent many happy holidays at the Blue Mountains and often trekked off to the Jenolan Caves.

But I have been through all my albums and am hard pressed to find any photos or postcards that give any indication of going to the caves.  We must have been too busy looking at the stalactites and stalagmites to be taking photos.  Remember if they are falling down they are stalactites - just like the tights I used to wear at school that I had to keep pulling up.

Then I thought some more and remembered how much I loved Enid Blyton's books in my youth...particularly The Secret of Spiggy Holes.  

Cover of Armada edition published 1965 - cover illustration by Mary Gernat

Originally published in 1940 it is the story of four children (Mike, Jack, Nora and Peggy) who go on holidays to Cornwall and are looked after by Miss Dimity while their parents go on a lecture tour to Ireland - as you do.

The book was terribly exciting - lots of boating and rising tides and midnight excursions.

The illustrations were not very sophisticated but they did the job.

Text illustrations by Dylan Roberts

You can imagine how excited I was when, at the age of ten, I got to go to Cornwall with my parents.

Here we are walking down the streets, exploring.

We loved this little place.  

I brought home a ship in a tiny dimpled bottle from this shop - long gone now I'm afraid.

Alex and Barb at the shell shop in Polperro 

Here is another picture that my father took nearby and I am sure that is a cave in the distance.  What do you think?

  

Anyway this was the best I could muster for today's exercise.

I did look in Arthur Mee's Children's Encyclopaedia for inspiration but could only find this in Volume 8 in an article about Spain.  Not much chop I know.

I looked on State Library of Queensland's website and was interested to see that there are caves at Moreton Island, Noosa Heads, Dunk Island, Chillagoe and Carnarvon Range.  I thought this photo was interesting in a kind of by the by way.  

William Cave - District Registrar Banana Shire  Clermont 1871- photographer J.W. Wilder

You can read about Mr Cave's appointment in an article in Trove here.  Thank you Mr Cave for all the hard work you did which we family historians appreciate down through the ages.

But back to the Jenolan caves....here last, but not least, is a photo of my mother and me at the Jenolan Caves in December 1990.  Yes I know you can't see the caves.  We're walking towards them.  You can see the guesthouse behind us. 

And I might add, that my daughter is in the photo too - well hidden in her own little cave inside my tummy.  There - that made you squirm or laugh I hope.

And no, I don't know where the phrase 'caverns measureless to man' comes from - do you?