Muntapa Tunnel

Once the longest railway tunnel in the southern hemisphere, this 300m long, now disused tunnel is home to a colony of small bent-wing bats. In winter up to 8,000 bats live in this tunnel.

In the summer months the number is greatly reduced as the bats leave to their breeding caves.

See where this picture was taken.

View all photos taken: Sunday, 16th December 2007, This photo: 2:29pm

Next Photo: Moo!

Comments

  • maasha said:
    And where are these bats in the photo?
  • David de Groot said:
    They wouldn't stand still for a portrait.
  • The Sage of Shadowdale said:
    The distortion looks a bit odd with the 10mm perspective. I always wonder where people go to photograph abandoned buildings/tunnels/etc. I never seem to be able to find these places, although to be honest I don't look very hard (and I guess the difficulty differs from city to city).
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  • Shaun Johnston said:
    Makes you want to string up graffiti-ists
  • David de Groot said:
    It's not that distorted really, just a slightly wider view than you'd register with your eyes. The construction, using long panels of concrete (or at least boards to hold the concrete while setting) make the convergent nature of the tunnel more obvious. I stumbled upon this tunnel while checking out locations around Toowoomba on the 'net.

    Indeed!
  • beachut (John) said:
    David, I went for a tour thru the old Greenvale Railway tunnels just in the hills above us. Slim Dusty has a song about it "Three rivers hotel" here is the 400m tunnel which was full of bats as well
    Light at the end
  • David de Groot said:
    Neat. I wonder when that one was made (presumably after the Muntapa one, or someone's telling tales about the record setting nature of the Muntapa tunnel) ;-)
  • bornarmenian said:
    This is definitely one for the <a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/parallax/"> * Vanishing Points * Group</a>
  • petepothole said:
    Everyones got to have a longer one! Is it about size John & Dave!
    No, great tunnel mate! LOLS!
  • Yorri¢k said:
    great subjects
  • Garry' said:
    Hey David....did you walk from one end to the other? I made this walk some time back...rather creepy and a very soft ground in the middle of the tunnel where most of the bats live. Thanks for bringing memories back.

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  • David de Groot said:
    Thanks.

    Well I guess it's not how long it is but how many bats live there... ;-) or something like that anyway.

    Neat eh ?

    I must say, I didn't personally walk all the way through. Greg and Shaun did, but I had my 5 yo son with me and he wasn't keen about the bats so I stayed at one end with him.