Natural Bridge Caverns

 

Myles had mentioned his interest in seeing a series of caves he had heard of not far from NB.  We made our way over to the park and got our tickets for the 12:30 Gorbie Spelunking. The caverns are expressed at surface by a fairly large sinkhole with a remnant of the surface bridging across the hole (thus the name). As such, the location was well known to indigenous people and early settlers, farmers and ranchers.  The subterranean caverns were first documented in 1960 by a group of college students who must have been very enthusiastic spelunkers, they sought and received permission from the landowner to explore the subsurface.  Down they went through a tiny crawlway to discover a spectacular series of very large caverns containing spectacular and beautiful geological features; stalactites, stalagmites, curtains, soda straws, drip cones, drapes, fried eggs to name but a couple.  Their discovery must have been hugely exciting for them as apparently they spent 14 hours in the caves that first entry with the nervous landowner standing vigil at the surface.  The feature has been extensively developed and excavated in a very considerate fashion to allow tourists to descend 180 feet into the subsurface and inspect these remarkable caves without the claustrophobic crawls through mud and sharp edges.  The overall experience was really fantastic.  The tour guide was really informative, the development was very well put together and we all really enjoyed the whole 75 minute experience (including the heat and humidity!).  Back to the condo to freshen up and have a snack prior to heading up to Austin for the evening.  Kicked things off with a cocktail at Myles’ happy place (Four Seasons) overlooking the Colorado River (Lady Bird Lake).  Beautiful setting there bathing in the late afternoon sun.  Then we made our way to the Broken Spoke (Michael’s happy place) but erred in selecting the Lavaca Street Bar for dinner rather than just going into the Spoke dining room.  After eating a very mediocre burger, we grabbed a beer inside the Spoke awaiting the doors to open.  We elected to not partake in the two step lessons, which were very entertaining to undertake vicariously.  The music was top shelf with Jesse Lee & Brazilbilly 10.  

I was very pleased to get a bit of two steppin with K, the boys and Alex might have benefitted from the lessons!  To avoid getting too tired for the hour drive back to NB, we sadly (at least for me) pulled the plug fairly early and drove back to the Sidecar for a nightcap.