It has been about five years since I bought my current camera and it's functioned admirably the entire time. It has many positive attributes. It's terrific for sunrises, and with a great deal of zoom available on demand, it's good for the Moon, Jupiter, and when pushed to the limit, for Saturn and Alpha Centauri A and B. However, It's a bit large to carry around.
It is for that reason that I did not take it along when friends Evan and Ruth invited us for an overnight sightseeing trip some time ago. My phone fits so nicely in a pocket and generally does a passable job, as long as the light is good. I found that on this trip, my phone did perform adequately at all but one of the sites we visited. Unfortunately, that one site we visited had sights so remarkable that my phone just wasn't up to the task of recording them as accurately as I would have liked. Even my Nikon would have had trouble showing you the reality of the wonder we were walking through.
Nevertheless, I do have some photos for you that will at least give you a taste of what we saw. I guess the rest is up to me to describe as best I can.
Here we are, walking along a boardwalk in dense forest on a sunny day.
We're about to cross the stream you see at the bottom of the chasm we're in to the other side.
As you can see, the boardwalk is built at the base of sheer walls of rock.
Lush, sub-tropical plant growth is everywhere.
This next picture defies logic. At least, I couldn't quite imagine what I was seeing as I reached this spot. I need to explain a little before we go further.
The history of this place began millions of years ago. The rock that you're seeing along both sides of this stream is limestone. For millions of years it slowly accumulated and compacted from sea shells and corals growing in the sea that covered this spot in those days. Then, through more millions of years, this bed of limestone was lifted ever higher as tectonic plates moved, finally breaking the surface of the ocean and rising to it's present height above sea level.
Cracks in the limestone next allowed surface water to seep into the ground and it begin eating away at the limestone. Over time, this trickling water became the steam you see today. It continued over millennia to eat away at the stone and eventually formed an enormous cave. At some point in the past, most of the roof of this cave collapsed, leaving behind the chasm or gorge we've been walking along.
What you see up ahead is the last remaining roof of this cave that has not collapsed. Beyond this short section the roof is gone and the rift continues. I was told the roof of the cave is about 50 feet above us.
As I said earlier, I stood here speechless. I'm sure my mouth was hanging open as I processed what I was seeing. The bright afternoon sunlight and deep shade below made it hard for my phone camera to take good pictures, but I'll show you what I have.
We climbed the steps.
Our higher vantage point
This is the roof of the cave. You can see some stalactite-like shapes. One last look from down near the stream level again at the remarkable rock shapes.
I hope that you've enjoyed this look. I won't soon forget it. -djf
