Alexandra Cave

The showpiece underground

Of the four caves open to visitors at the World Heritage-listed Naracoorte Caves, Alexandra Cave is the beauty. A guided tour of around 30 minutes descends through three chambers hung with straws, stalactites, shawls and columns, all carefully lit and reached by good paths and stairs.

The cave's signature moment is a still pool that mirrors the formations above it so perfectly that photographs seem doubled — guides usually pause here, and it is worth lingering. Along the way you'll hear how rainwater seeping through the Naracoorte limestone has been building these decorations drip by drip for hundreds of thousands of years.

Alexandra is the easiest of the guided tours and suits all ages. Pair it with the fossil-rich Victoria Fossil Cave for the park's other great spectacle: the bones of the Ice Age megafauna that fell into these caves and never climbed out.