01-17-2023: Glowworm Tunnel

We had a great adventure today! One of the things I had noted while doing some research prior to our trip was the existence of a tunnel containing glowworms. We had experienced a fantastic glowworm excursion in New Zealand many years ago. During that excursion, we actually climbed in a boat and were paddled through an underground river into a large, very dark cavern to see the millions of glowworms hanging from the ceiling twinkling in the dark. It was memorable, and so I thought another glowworm experience would be worth having.

Margaret had an appointment in Lithgow in the morning, so that made going to the glowworm tunnel doable as the tunnel was about 35kms away from Lithgow in the Wollemi National Park. We would have had to go to Lithgow anyway to get to the tunnel, so it worked out well to tag along with Margaret. So off we went.

While Margaret was at her appointment, Lou, Christine, Daniel, Clare and I went to a shopping center to have a cuppa. Before we knew it, Margaret called to say she was finished. Daniel went to pick her up while we finished our coffees. Then the adventure started.

I didn’t know that the road from Lithgow to the glowworm tunnel was going to be 30km of a dirt/gravel road. I felt kind of bad that Margaret had to drive slowly nearly the whole time while we bumped along the dirt road, and I hoped that the tunnel was going to be worth it. It took us nearly an hour to traverse the countryside to get to the car park for the tunnel. But actually, the drive was really interesting as we saw the remnants of the horrible bushfires that were occurring in 2019/2020 just prior to our last trip to Australia. We saw whole bush areas of gum trees that had been burned. The trunks of surviving trees were blackened, but the foliage at the top of the trees was green. If the fire burned all the way through the tree, of course the tree died. The pine forests were totally burned, leaving only the skeleton of the trunks and branches with a few clumps of pine cones still hanging on the trees. Those trees were all dead, of course. But nature is quite amazing in that trees do survive the ravages of fire.

Nearing the end of the road into the car park the track narrowed through rock cliffs and then we had to drive through a tunnel. All this was part of the Wolgan Valley Railway, built in the early 1900s in order to transport supplies to and from the shale oil mines. The railway ran 51km and a long, 400m tunnel was dug through the rock mountain. The railway only operated until 1932 and I found it interesting to learn that the rail itself was all dug up and shipped off to northern Africa during WWII and was used in anti-tank traps.

The trail from the car park to the glowworm tunnel was about a mile and it was a lovely walk through both rock walls and bush.

All the way to the tunnel we saw evidence of fire damage as you might have noticed in some of the pictures above. It must have been an inferno of flames rushing through the narrow gorge. The photo below shows the evidence of fire on the trunk of tree. Close up it looks like animal fur, but its the fibers contained within the bark of the tree. This tree survived.

We certainly weren’t very prepared for entering a long, dark tunnel as we didn’t have any torches (flashlights), but thank goodness for cellphone flashlights. It got very dark, very quickly. The old rail bed was anything but smooth or level and there was quite a bit of water in many puddles. We had to stumble our way along in near darkness hugging the rock wall where there was a bit of a ledge that kept us out of most of the water. It was very slow going. Clare and Daniel saved the day by illuminating our path and keeping us from falling. They were so sweet being our protectors.

Glowworms are tiny insect larvae that glow through bioluminescence. They have fine filaments that hang down that are sticky and trap other insects for food. There’s a picture below.

On the way through the tunnel we didn’t really see many glowworms and again I felt terrible for dragging everyone out to do this trek. The glowworms are affected by sound and light causing them to turn off their light. While we were going through the tunnel, several groups with noisy children passed us and I kept trying to shush them. Also, people were shining their torches up at the ceiling as well, so the glowworms weren’t lighting up and I was frustrated.

We finally made it to the far end of the tunnel into the light, and this area was very beautiful. We wandered around exploring the small creek and the sandstone rocks.

There were hiking tracks through the bush back to the car park, but these were closed due to damage from flooding, so we had to return through the tunnel. Surprisingly, it was much easier on the return trip, and we didn’t have a lot of other noisy people around us. Again, Daniel and Clare illuminated our path, but it seemed so much easier and it took us half the time to return through the tunnel. The wonderful part of the return, though, was our ability to see thousands of glowworms all over the ceiling, down the sides, and even some near the water at the base. We all were in awe of the sight of the glowworms. It was like looking up into the sky on a dark night. As your eyes adjust, you see more and more stars in the sky, and that’s just the way it was in the tunnel. It was great! I was very happy that we got to see the glowworms because it did make all the effort to get there worthwhile. And even the drive back down the 30kms of dirt road didn’t seem as bad!

We stopped in Lithgow for a snack, as we had not eaten any lunch, and then drove back to Rylstone. It was a great adventure today. Now, back at home, we’re watching the Australian Open tennis tournament and enjoying that very much. They televise matches all day, into the night, here, so we’re getting our fill of tennis. We’ll have a couple of down days now. We’ve only been here a few days, but it seems like we’ve been on the go since we’ve arrived. It’s been great, so far but I’m looking forward to staying put for a couple of days.