In the early 1900s, one of the most popular tourist attractions in the Blue Mountains was the day or overnight trip to the Jenolan Caves (formerly Fish River Caves).
The caves, found by James Whalan when, according to legend, he was hunting the robber, James McKeown, were opened to visitors by his brother, Charles, in the early 1840s.
Tourists struggled through mud and darkness, illuminated by candles, to see the wonders of the caves. Their journey there and back to Sydney took days via Tarana, where trains stopped after 1872, and Oberon. Gradually, buildings replaced the camp-sites at the Caves. It was not a journey for the faint-hearted.
But still tourists came, especially after the July 1880 visit of Superintendent of Telegraphs, Lieutenant Colonel E C Cracknell, photographer Ludovico Hart and their team.
Their caravan from Tarana “consisted of three double-seated buggies and a four-horse wagon to carry the baggage, which…weighed over a ton.” (Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser, Saturday 18 September 1880).
They used heavy cast-iron battery cells they had carried with them to illuminate the beauty of the caves by electric light for the first time. Coloured glasses, placed in front of the lights, painted the walls and stalactites red, blue and yellow. The visitors were speechless.
Jenolan Caves became the first caves in the world lit by electricity attracting greater numbers of tourists in the late 1800s.
Businessmen in Katoomba, Blackheath and Mt Victoria, where tourism was growing in importance, saw an opportunity in encouraging tourists to begin their caves trip from the top of the Mountains. All they needed was a direct road to the caves.
The Six-Foot Track is the result of the search for a new route to Jenolan. Surveyed in April 1884 by William Cooper, Surveyor of Public Parks, this horse-and-carriage track from Katoomba to the caves was opened in September 1887 when Lord and Lady Carrington became the first recorded persons to officially use it.
But the track was too rough for the new motor car, which would make a daily return trip to the Caves from the upper Mountains possible. Consequently, the route via Hartley and Hampden became more practicable.
The Grand Arch was opened to vehicle traffic in 1896 and the road extended down the hill to the Caves so that tourists no longer had to struggle down a muddy track on foot. Tourists liked to pose for photographs outside the Hartley Court House, too.
By 1905, Sydney newspapers were advertising trips to the Caves from both The Carrington and Hydro Majestic Hotels.
Motor transport opened Jenolan Caves to the world.
Robyne Ridge is publicity officer for Blue Mountains Historical Society
