8.  WILLI WILLI CAVES

                                                           From "Helictite" magazine October 1965
Where is this place, you may well ask! Inland from the mid north coast - and not a place I have visited.
Quotes are from the National Parks and Wildlife Plan of Management.

"Willi Willi Caves Nature Reserve covers 8ha and is located on the Mid North Coast of NSW on the lower slope of a ridge in the upper Macleay River catchment, 35 km to the west of Kempsey. Willi Willi Caves Nature Reserve protects part of a limestone karst system. The Australian Speleological Federation (ASF 1985) lists some 37 entrances in the reserve with the Willi Willi Bat Cave being the main feature. This cave is basically one large chamber with a number of branching tunnels connected to it and is used as a maternity cave by the common bent-wing bat."

" The entrance of this cave lies directly under the crest of a small fold about 10m across and the main chamber is developed along the axis of this small anticlinal fold plunging to the east. The branching tunnels trend at angles of 90º to the main chamber and 30º to each other, having formed by dissolution of limestone along the prominent joint planes. The central chamber of the cave is 33 m long, varying in width from 10 m to 13 m. The average height of the roof is 8.2 m, rising to a maximum of 12.8 m (Wallis 1965)."

"Visitor access to the reserve is restricted to approved speleological clubs, educational visits and scientific purposes."

 "Visitor use of the reserve will not be encouraged or promoted. No visitor facilities will be provided in the reserve, apart from signage on access restrictions."

This means that few readers of this blog are ever likely to go there. The basic reason for this is the fact that Willi Willi main cave is an important bat breeding and hibernation location. Disturbance of the bats at any time is prohibited. So, stay away!

Geology of the Willi Willi Caves area. Fossils found in these rocks indicate that their age is Lower Permian. The limestone has a very uniform composition and fairly constant thickness, but  varies considerably in colour. From Yessabah to Willi Willi it is pink or purple with some grey and white, and from Willi Willi to the point where it crosses the Daisy Plains road it is white or grey.

It should be noted that the Willi Willi Caves do not occur within the Willi Willi Limestone Member, but within the stratigraphically lower Yessabah Limestone.

Caves are developed at Yessabah, Sebastopol (Willi Willi Caves), and Moparrabah. These are generally dead caves, with little decoration and large bat colonies. The largest cave is about 100 m long.

Information from "The Limestone Deposits of New South Wales" by SR Lishmund, AD Dawood and WV Langley (Department of Mineral Resources, 1986)

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Shoalhaven District Geology.







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