A few weeks ago, on a 35 degree Celsius day, my parents and I went with my godparents and their relatives, who were visiting from Malaysia, to visit Crystal Cave at Yanchep National Park. I uploaded the pictures that I took to my Opera photo album. My dad also took some nice pictures, which I'll add to the album as soon as I stop being lazy and ask my brother for the camera.

The first time I went to Yanchep was when my dad was house hunting, we had driven up north to Quinns Rock, Merriwa and travelled all the way to Yanchep, but we didn't stay there long, just a short drive through the national park and a brief stop at the beach.

The 17th October 2009 would be my second time at Yanchep. My godmother's sister had come to Australia from Malaysia with her friend and their children. From our house, the drive to Yanchep National Park took around half an hour. After paying for entry into Yanchep National Park, we parked our cars just outside the Koala Boardwalk and had a look at the koalas. We then headed to the visitor centre to book a tour of the caves.

It was a really hot day, so after the tour guide for Crystal Cave gave a brief talk about safety in the cave, it was a relief to escape the heat by entering the cave which is a cool 20 degrees Celcius all year round. That was the first time I had been in a cave. My dad had visited caves before in China, and all throughout the tour my dad kept commenting about how the caves in China are so much better than Crystal Cave. Initially I felt a little unsteady about walking through a cave, but I quickly got used to it and it was really enjoyable.

For some reason, the pictures I took of the inside of the cave are covered in strange white circles, which my brother says is dust on the camera lens. The cave was dimly lit with orange lights to prevent algae from growing in the humid cave, and combined with the colour of the stalagmites and stalactites gave the cave a surreal impression. But my camera has a really strong flash which eliminated the warm orange glow from the environment.

I wanted to stay in the cave all day because it was so hot outside, but that wasn't possible. After the tour of Crystal Cave, we went to have lunch by the lake where we were quickly surrounded by ducks and swamphens that wanted a bite of our sandwiches.