Yarrangobilly Thermal Pool and Caves
Some places get absolutely hammered by Instagram influencers, and Yarrangobilly Thermal Pools and Caves is one of them. They’ve even got Starlink set up that gives WiFi to those at the pool, so you can upload your photos and tag them on social media.
Whilst this is not us at all, we were in the area and wanted to see the thermal pools and caves, to see what they were really like. After all, what you see on social media is often shown through some pretty unrealistic filters.
Where is Yarrangobilly Thermal Pool and Caves?
You’ll find this not far off the Snowy Mountain Highway, on a single, one way road. This was dual way when we visited due to road works, and there was traffic management in place to direct people in and out.
In terms of distance from the nearest towns, its roughly 47 km from Talbingo, or 144 km from Jindabyne.
Do you need a 4WD to get there?
No; its bitumen most of the way, with a few short sections of gravel that are kept in good condition. We saw a number of 2WD’s here.
What does it cost?
To visit the area, you need to pay $4 per vehicle. The thermal pools are free, but you need to pay extra to visit the caves. We had the Kosciuszko national parks pass already, and spent about $65 for our family to do the South Glory Cave.
Yarrangobilly Thermal Pools
This thermal pool is accessed one of two ways, with the recommendation for us to walk down the steep, 700 metre road (not for public use by car), and then to walk along the river and through South Glory Cave back to the car park.
The 700 metre walk is really steep, and whilst its doable to come back up that way, it’d be a hard slog in the sun.
The actual thermal pools can be seen as you walk down the hill, and they look pretty magic from above. You go past a starlink setup where you can get free WiFi, but I couldn’t connect for one reason or another.
The thermal pools are split into a kids splash pool at the bottom, and the main thermal pool at the top. They’re kept at 27 degrees from a natural spring, which sounds warm, but its not. Well, its not cold, but most heated swimming pools are warmer.
They’re very natural too, with algae and weed growing in the bottom, and ducks making it their home too. I’d say its unlikely for you to visit without others there, but there is change rooms which makes it nice and convenient.
We swam here, and quite enjoyed it, but I’ve never been much of a fan of man made attractions, and I reckon we’ve swum in nicer natural pools. That said, it is quite pretty, and I would imagine with snow around it’d be quite the treat. Overall, its worth a look, but its not a place that I would stand on a podium and shout praises about.
South Glory Cave
I was quite impressed with South Glory Cave though. This is massive, and easily the biggest cave that we’ve been in, and we’ve done quite a few. The walk through the cave is self guided, and takes quite a bit of time. The lights come on as you walk through, but its quite dark, and there’s some massive chambers with a heap of different rock formations.
This worked really well with our kids who love to bound through things quickly, and we all really enjoyed it. I think it was money fairly well spent, and soon popped out into the carpark, where we drove back to our camp at Long Plains Hut.
