Drovers Cave National Park is a national park in the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia (Australia), 201 kilometres (125 mi) northwest of Perth. The nearest town is Jurien Bay 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) to the west.
The area is composed of limestone and numerous caves are known to exist within the park boundaries. Many of the caves are locked with screens to keep visitors out in the interest of public safety and to prevent vandalism.
Some of the other caves found within the park include Hastings, Moora, Old river and Mystery caves. Hastings cave is known to contain fossils.
Drovers Cave was well known to early explorers and stockmen; the location of the site near to the Canning Stock Route meant it was often visited by drovers, hence the name. The first known visit to the cave was a drover who signed the cave wall in 1886. Many more visits occurred between 1930 and 1940. The cave was surveyed in 1973 and gazetted as part of the National Park the same year.
Native flora within the park includes shrub banksia, One-sided Bottlebrush and Parrot Bush. Fauna includes Emus, Honey Possums, Western Pygmy Possums, Short-beaked Echidnas, Western Grey Kangaroos, Australian Bustards and many reptiles.
Famous quotes containing the words cave, national and/or park:
“The whole cut impressed me as if it were a cave with its stalactites laid open to the light.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“I, with other Americans, have perhaps unduly resented the stream of criticism of American life ... more particularly have I resented the sneers at Main Street. For I have known that in the cottages that lay behind the street rested the strength of our national character.”
—Herbert Hoover (18741964)
“and the words never said,
And the ominous, ominous dancing ahead.
We sat in the car park till twenty to one
And now Im engaged to Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.”
—Sir John Betjeman (19061984)