Texas Hill Country and the Longhorn Caverns

We headed north-west out of Austin towards the Longhorn Cavern State Park in Texas Hill Country. It was a really nice drive through pretty (by Texas standards) scenery and small 'cowboy' towns. We had an hour to wait for our tour of the caverns so we wandered the surrounding trails through the rugged countryside looking at the cacti and the stunning and rather bolshy blue jays. It was great to get out into the countryside, especially as this time last week we were building snowmen!

Cacti everywhere and a Blue Jay hopping around.

The extensive caverns were formed by water moving through the limestone rock some 280 million years ago. Since this time many sections of the caverns filled with mud which was cleared from the caves in the 1930's by Civilian Conservation Corps - part of Roosevelt's 'New Deal' program during the great depression, leaving 1 1/4 miles of walkable caves. The history of the cave use was fascinating, with occupation dating back over 400 years to the Comanche Indians, through Civil War gunpowder manufacturing to the use of the largest cavern as a speakeasy and dance hall during the prohibition years. We even managed to see a single solitary bat, the only remaining resident from what was once a large colony from which the guano was mined, although I wasn't overly convinced it was actually alive.

 

We ended a pleasant day with the drive through Hill Country to San Antonio. We decided it must be skunk mating season or something as the car filled with the reek of skunk several times and the  roadkill stench was awful. Still, it didn't put me off the enormous barbeque beef ribs I had for dinner!