Koelenhof 3 caving Jun 2010

A few years ago I did some cave and abseil guiding for Wild Cave Adventures based in Krugersdorp. I was also involved in the abseil supervising during the Amazing Race episode where the contestants had to go through Bat cave - the standard, beginners cave that Wild Cave guides. But together with three other clients, Nicola and I were given the opportunity to go to the Koelenhof caves (K1, K2 and K3) to see some of the exquisite formations that fewer than a thousand people on this planet have seen.

We met up with Neil and the other clients at 7am and drove through to the entrance of the cave. We donned overalls, hard hat, headlamp, spare headlamp and shouldered water, snacks, dry clothes, rope and slings in the brisk winter air before starting our descent. The first drop of about 30m was steep but easy, apart from a very tight hole we had to squeeze through, and we were surprised to find a black-backed jackal cornered in one of the side chambers. Giving it space to come past us, it bolted back to top before we had a chance to photograph it.

We came to our first obstacle where Neil wedged a knotted rope into a slot and we shimmied/skidded down the muddy groove. Then it was down, down, down as we hurried through K1. A nasty looking jump over an 8m drop saw us to the edge of the first underground lake which Neil indicated is usually much smaller than its current levels. Now we climbed up a steep, muddy and extemely slippery slope to reach a rope ladder - the beginning of K2. The rope ladder ascends a squelchy and dirty mud mound to access an awkward squeeze and it took some maneuvering to get through. We were now entering chambers and sections that few people have ever seen and the formations started to take on a brilliant white and clean look. We stopped several times to take pictures but Neil assured us these ones were terrible compared to what awaited us in K3.

Further we went and at noon we reached the second lake, about 110 vertical metres underground. Nervously we peeled to swimming costumes and Rockys, tripple bagging dry shirts and cameras before heading into the water. Our main concern was that we may have to swim underwater but the levels turned out to be just low enough so that you only have to dip your head below the water for a few seconds. Entering the water (which, by the way, is the exact same temperature as the cave, year round, at 18 degrees C), it was a bit chilly at first but barely seconds into the water, it was very comfortable. One by one we swam through the crystal clear water to the other side, got out and put on dry shirts. Now we were in K3. A steep, rocky and loose scramble, followed by a squeezy hole, brought us into a large chamber where, upon first sight, we stood spellbound. Lit by the soft LED lights from our headlamps, the chamber took on an ethereal quality and we were lost for words as we gazed at the brilliant white stalactites, stalacmites, columns, helictites, aragonite crystals, straw formations and curtain formations stained in beautiful patterns by iron oxides. Careful not to touch any formations we spent almost an hour in this chamber taking photographs and staring around us.

None of us wanted to leave but it was an arduous climb back up so we left K3 behind and scrambled down to the lake for another swim. After our swim we dressed up again in the 100% humidity and had some snacks for lunch, before retracing our steps. Where we jumped onto a rock on the way down, we now had a slightly tricky and scary obstacle where we had to get across a 1m gap. But with some team effort (mainly Neil giving us a hand on the other side) the only problem we had was Nicola smacking her knee hard on a rock as she came across. We ascended steadily, crawling, squeezing, squatting, sweating, breathing very heavily and finally reached our last obstacle where we shimmied down the rope on the way down. With a lot of inefective scraping of muddy shoes on muddy rock, we all made it to the top and then it was through the last tight hole before the scramble back into sunligh - it was 15:15 in the afternoon, a cool winter's day on the highveld and we've just seen and experienced something unbelievable!