The Myrtleford University of the Third Age (U3A) recently hosted Melbourne University's Dr David Gillieson to talk about his expertise in natural caves.

His talk at the Savoy Club on Tuesday, 21 April was attended by about 40 Myrtleford members and their friends, who listened to his 'Adventures on the Nullarbor'.

"I've been after him to present for us for a while," Myrtleford U3A president, Jan Mock said.

"We have a regular speaker, once a month and as he is a resident of Myrtleford...people were pretty excited to listen to him and he was very well received.

"I think a lot of people have driven over the Nullarbor Plains and thought it was just an arid area with little to recommend it, in many ways.

"A lot of the caves aren't open to the public, but they are important in terms of fossils and in learning about the geology of the area.

"There's massive limestone cliffs, which go for about 200 kilometres and where you see limestone, you tend to get caves.

"It was interesting to look back at the way the world changes."

The Nullarbor is a globally-significant expanse of limestone which covers an area of more than 220,000 kilometres-squared, spanning Western Australia and South Australia, underpinned by several hundreds metres of limestone rock, up to 45 million years old.

It was covered in lush coastal forest between five and 3.5 million years ago, contains at least 6500 mapped caves, which include thousands of sinkholes and dolines.

Several of the caves were formed by underground streams tens of kilometres in length and many caves contain lakes with pristine, crystal clear water.

The caves, spiritually significant to the Mirning People, have a unique fauna which has adapted to live without light and includes blind spiders and wasps found nowhere else in the world.

The caves were used by Aboriginal people up to 39,000 years ago, who travelled up to 1.5 kilometres underground to mine flint.

The WA Nullarbor is currently threatened by the Western Green Energy Hub (WGEH) which will contain six million solar panels and 3500 wind turbines.

More information about the Nullarbor and the likely impact of the WGEH can be found at: https://savethenullarbor.org/

A petition against the proposal can be signed at: https://www.change.org/p/save-the-nullarbor

The Myrtleford U3A holds monthly talks at the Savoy Club, to which members of the public are welcome.

For more information, visit: https://u3amyrtleford.org.au/