Jenolan Caves

Do not set out for this one yet. Jenolan has been closed since April 2024, and the operator's notice, updated in July 2026, says it is shut for major road repairs with reopening planned for early 2027. The Two Mile section of Jenolan Caves Road was wrecked by extreme weather between 2021 and 2024; the New South Wales government started remediation in August 2024 and the work is still running, so the access road is not open to public traffic. The Six Foot Track is closed as well, between Jenolan Caves House and Binda Bush Cabins, after the April rainfall. The trust is using the shutdown to overhaul show-cave infrastructure, refurbish the historic Caves House, build a new Blue Lake boardwalk and upgrade the tracks, so what reopens should be in better condition than what closed. Everything below is what waits for you when it does.

Jenolan is the oldest known and dated open cave system in the world. The dating puts it at around 340 million years, which is an extraordinary age for a cave, since caves are usually transient features that fill or collapse long before that.

The caves sit in the Jenolan Karst Conservation Reserve in the Central Tablelands of New South Wales, west of the Blue Mountains, about 175 km from Sydney. The reserve covers 3,083 hectares, and the cave network follows the underground course of the Jenolan River through more than 40 km of multi-level passage with over 300 known entrances. It is still being explored.

The limestone carries Silurian marine fossils, and the calcite formations, some of them pure white, are what the caves are famous for. Eleven show caves are lit for visitors, each with its own character and its own tour, so a single trip has never been enough to see the place out.

The Tharawal names for the place are Binoomea, Bindo and Binda, and the country around it was occupied long before the caves were shown to European visitors.

In 2000 the caves and reserve were inscribed as one of the eight protected areas making up the UNESCO World Heritage listed Greater Blue Mountains Area, and the Jenolan reserve is the most westerly of the eight. It forms part of the Great Dividing Range, was listed on the Register of the National Estate in 1978, and is on the Australian National Heritage List.

The road in passes through the Grand Arch, an enormous natural limestone tunnel, which is an unusually dramatic way to arrive anywhere. Tours have ranged from easy lit walks to adventure caving on ropes.