Previous adventure cave experience, such as the Plughole or Aladdin is essential, before you attempt the Mammoth Cave adventure.

This challenging cave is very extensive, with large chambers, rockpiles, long passages, chimneys and squeezes. It will take you about six hours to complete and involves extensive climbing and a caving ladder. Your reward - large caverns of great beauty and the clear flow of Lower River.

Like most of our adventures, Mammoth starts in the Old Schoolhouse, getting fitted with overalls, helmets and headlights and having a look at a map of Mammoth Cave to get you oriented. It's not called 'Mammoth' Cave for nothing!

After a stroll up McKeowns Valley to the cave entrance, we will brief you on cave safety and minimal-impact practices. From there, you head through the grand Entrance Chamber, over rocks, mud and through a few short squeezes. Now you've warmed up, the challenges begin, with the 'Jug Handle' and a twisting vertical scramble down through the 'Rockpile'. Next, a long, sandy crawl past fossils, and on through 'Gun Barrel' and rocky passages to reach the awesome Lower River. Time to relax and enjoy some well-earned morning tea. You can drink straight from Lower River, as the water is very pure and cool.

After morning tea you have a choice of a rest, or a chimney climb up to the stunning Oolite Chamber. We recommend the second option! Oolite is an enormous chamber full of massive, glittering crystal formations of show cave quality. Unlike show caves, though, only the brave and the hardy get to see it!

From here we head back to the Jug Handle, via either the Rockpile or a cave ladder up the Forty Footer, to collect our lunch packs and find a warm spot for lunch.

We take the afternoon at a slightly more leisurely pace, exploring the extensive Railway Tunnel and aiming for the legendary Skull and Crossbones, first reached by guide Jeremiah Wilson and friends in 1884. Heading for home, we pass through the Horseshoe Cavern and Cold Hole, before one last squeeze through Wombat Hole and then out through the vast Entrance Chamber.