0 kms today
We rose early had breakfast at Winema Lodge and headed off to Lava Beds National Monument park. The Visitor Centre didn't open until 9am so we hung around the car park until opening time. We booked a 2pm tour of the Sunshine Cave and headed off to a lookout that had views over the whole park. It is used as a lookout for fire control and Craig the all american ranger with his Dennis Quaid moustache gave us the run down on how the park was created.
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| Alan struggling up the 800 metre track to the lookout. |
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| Mount Shasta from the fire lookout. |
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| Colin at the fire lookout. |
The whole place was a volcanic playground which blew the top off Mount Mazuma and created huge lava flows which in turn created the lava tubes or caves. We visited the Skull Cave which contained old bones of previous inhabitants and has an ice bed at the bottom. We also visited the cave with Pictographs of cave paintings. Not very impressive as we only saw a couple of smudged impressions. The weather was about 36C and we got very hot jumping in and out of our riding gear as we rode between each site. We met Mary our guide for the tour of the Sunshine cave at 2pm and blagged a ride in her wagon thereby eliminating the need for us to ride our bikes to the entrance of the cave. The tour was very interesting and Mary was a dedicated guide answering all our questions. After the tour we headed back to Winema Lodge for few cold beers and a huge dinner cooked by our hostess.
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