Curio

State Library of New South Wales
The Entrance, Fish River Caves

The Entrance, Fish River Caves

October 1861
ML 1396
Watercolour

This painting is one of the first known images of the Grand Arch at the Jenolan Caves. In 1861, the caves were still relatively unexplored and were known by various names such as the Fish River Caves, the Bindo Caves or McKeown’s Caves. It wasn’t until 1884, when a parish map of the area was being prepared that they were officially named Jenolan Caves, after nearby Mount Jenolan.

This image was created by George Ferris Pickering’s in 1861, and depicts quite a different scene to what visitors see today. Pickering’s painting is of significance because it shows how the Grand Arch may have originally looked for thousands of years before tourism in the area boomed in 1880s. The influx of tourism had an immediate impact on the natural state of the caves. Parties of tourists making the trek to the caves camped in the Grand Arch or Devil’s Coachhouse, and would regularly snap off stalagmites or stalactites as souvenirs. By the mid 1880s as a result of the vandalism, many of the cave formations had to be protected by wire fences. A few years later when the main road into the resort was extended through the Grand Arch in 1896, pollution from the car exhaust blackened the formations.

The first recorded European discovery of the Caves was in 1838 by a local pastoralist, James Whalan. However before this time, it was believed that Bushranger James McKeown, used the caves as a hideout.

The Jenolan Caves are the oldest discovered open caves in the world. Scientists think they are about 340 million years old. 

The Jenolan Caves are part of the traditional lands of the Gundungurra people.

The Grand Arch is the largest open cave in Australia.

The Jenolan Caves were some of the first caves in the world to be illuminated with electric light. The Imperial Cave was lit in 1887 and by 1894, most of the ‘show’ caves were electrically lit.

The Jenolan Caves first official tour guide was appointed during 1870s. Before then, the only visitors to the caves were intrepid or leisured travellers that carried sufficient resources that would sustain them for longer than a week.