There were some nods.
‘These intrepid people climbed down with ropes and candles and discovered a cathedral of stalactites and stalagmites and even though it was before roads came here they still felt they could market the caverns for tourism.’ She pointed back towards the bus. ‘That’s what it’s like now so you can imagine how rough it was more than a hundred years ago.’
One of the teenage boys murmured a ‘Wow’ and Faith smiled at him.
‘Thirty years after the caves were discovered, these early day entrepreneurs built a stately manor with huge picture windows overlooking the sea, to use as accommodation and enticement for visitors. You can see the ornate gates and driveway to the left when you first enter the car park. Maybe that was why it was honeymooners of the early nineteen-hundreds who were attracted by the mysterious caves, though others still came to celebrate the majestic setting. Later, that lovely old building closed to the public and became a private residence. We have a few old photos of what it used to be like in the kiosk if you are interested.’
She had a sudden forlorn thought of how she would have liked a honeymoon in that old mansion and, despite herself, her glance slid to Raimondo.
If it hadn’t been for him making the standard so high she might have been married by now!
Faith shook her thoughts away and looked at the eager faces. Best only to look at them. ‘Getting inside the cavern and caves is much easier today than it was then.’ She gestured to the railed path. ‘For them, after days of jolting rides they finally arrived and lowered each other down on ropes tied to the pepper trees, dressed in suits and hats, women in hoops and skirts.’
She waited for the oohs and ahhs to subside as the group imagined the potential wardrobe malfunctions. ‘It took those plucky cavers ten hours of clambering, and no doubt countless torn flounces, to crawl through the caves that now take you an hour to circumnavigate when you use the stairs and boardwalks of twentieth century safety.’
She smiled again and it was getting easier to ignore the man at the back. This was her spiel, her forte, sharing this passion. ‘In those days there were no pretty electric lights to backdrop the most magnificent of these natural wonders so far below the surface. Just lamps and candles.’ She straightened her helmet. ‘Okay. We’ll enjoy the views you get today when we return to the gentle paths. But first we’ll do some rough terrain ourselves and go deeper than the average tourist gets to see.
‘Ready?’ At their nods she moved forward to the entrance. ‘I’ll go first and point to where we’re exiting the boardwalk. We slip under the rail to seek out the more remote and unusual areas of the cave. When we return you can take your time once you’re back on the boardwalk and really savour the lighted areas of the larger caves.’
She looked around for the most nervous faces. ‘Anyone who’s feeling a little unsure—you should come up here next to me, with the most confident of you at the back.’ The quiet man moved diffidently forward and Faith smiled at him. ‘It’s worth the effort,’ she reassured him.
She noted Raimondo had stayed back and she felt the muscles in her shoulders relax a notch. Okay then. He wouldn’t be breathing down her neck. Just watching her the whole time. Not great but better.
She went on. ‘When you’re traversing the cave please remember to use three points of contact to give you balance. Safety is the most important part of stepping off the boardwalk. As you know, we’re heading for the dry riverbed which is more than forty metres below the surface and there’s no lights down there.’
A few murmurs greeted that. ‘If your heart does start to pound—’ she slowed so everyone could hear ‘—if you can feel yourself becoming anxious, take a couple of deep breaths and remember…’ They were all listening. She grinned. ‘This is fun and there are more of these tours every week and we haven’t lost one person yet.’
A ripple of relieved laughter eased the tension. ‘Let’s go.’ Faith ducked her head and stepped down onto the sloping boardwalk. The air temperature cooled as she moved ahead, not too fast, because she could still remember the first time she’d entered the cavern and her open-mouthed awe of the ceilings and floors, but fast enough to encourage people not to stop until she made the point where they left the wooden planks.
A few minutes later she counted eight adults. ‘Right then.’ She crouched down, slid under the rail and put her weight on the uneven rocks off the main path, the stones like familiar friends under her feet. Then she slid sideways through a crevice, down an incline, and stopped to point out a particularly wobbly rock and let everyone catch up. ‘Try to plant your weight on the big rocks—not into the holes.’ She heard the crack of a helmet behind her as someone bumped their forehead. Bless the helmets.
‘Now sit down on your bottom to slide off this small drop into the darkness below.’ A stifled gasp from right behind her suggested someone had sat down too quickly and hit the wet spot on the cavern floor.
She raised her voice a little. ‘It might be time to turn that headlamp on. Shine it on your feet, not into the eyes of the person in front, or into their faces behind you when you turn your head.’
This was all the fun stuff but she knew that most of the tourists behind her would be stamping down the claustrophobia of being in a small tunnel space underground with someone in front and someone following them.
It was lucky Raimondo was at the back because the others might forget how much space he took up. Not something Faith could forget, though for a different reason.
She paused at a fork in the path and waited for everyone to catch up, then pointed at a magnificent curtain of rock.
‘That veil of rock is where hundreds of years of dripping water have formed a bacon-rind-shaped rim of curved ice that divides the ceiling.’ She remembered enthusing about that to Raimondo all those years ago.
She shook the thought off. The beauty truly did make her astonished every time. Lifting her chin, she pulled her imaginary cloak of confidence tightly around her again. ‘Ahead are more joined stalactites to reach towards stalagmites and if you look over here there’s a magnificent column that stretches from floor to ceiling. What a gift of nature—that took thousands of years.’
The reverence was back in her own voice because, despite the man at the end of the line of tourists, every time she came down here she shook her head in wonder. Which was why she still marvelled that Dianne actually paid her to savour this subterranean cathedral she loved so much.
They’d come to one of the tricky spots. ‘This opening’s narrow—be careful not to scrape yourself here.’ This was the point she had wondered if Raimondo would have difficulty with sliding through.
He seemed even bigger than when she’d met him before. Hard to imagine but true. More wedge-shaped. Toughened and toned. Muscled and honed. Hopefully not so broad that he’d jam in the crevice like a cork in a bottle—but she had a contingency plan for the others if he did. Not so much for him. She stifled an evil grin. Tsk, Faith, she admonished herself.
Still, there was another, less accessible exit for emergencies, and nobody had ever really been stuck.
Yet.
She waited.
Tried not to hold her breath.
Her heart rate picked up as she heard the subtle crunch of rock fragments in a long agonising squeeze, then he pushed through into the small cavern they were all standing in with a slight rush. Close fit.
Her breath puffed out.
He was fine. Bet that made the sweat stand out on his manly brow though. She smiled.
Then frowned at herself.
Another tsk. Not nice, Faith.
This was unlike her and a measure of how much that grim visage of his had affected her equilibrium.
Stop