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!

Bat cave Nov 2009

Links

• Wild Cave Adventures

This was Nicola's first trip with Wild Cave Adventures, going down Bat cave - the same cave used in Leg 5 of Amazing Race Season 7. A short but enjoyable morning out!

South Africa tour Aug-Sep 2009

A 3-week multi-purpose holiday around South Africa. Our aim was to do some sightseeing, see lots of birds, see flowers in Namaqualand and introduce Nicola to my parents. We started off by driving to Potchefstroom and birding the OPM Prozesky bird sanctuary in town. Then we moved onto some back roads towards Klerksdorp and visited Faan Meintjies Nature Reserve. In Kimberley we visited Kamfers dam and the Big Hole before going to Barkley West and Spitskop Dam Nature Reserve. Our next stop was in Augrabies National Park before driving down to Springbok and catching our first proper flower fields in Namaqua National Park. In Lambert's Bay we visited Bird Island and then also got excellent flowers in West Coast National Park and Postberg. We joined my parents on my Dad's birthday present trip - a day out to Robben Island where we did the standard prison tour but also got to drive around the island with a local contact I had, picking up the Chukar partridges occurring only here. While In Cape Town we also visited Helderberg Nature Reserve and the Paarl Sewerage Works.

We moved onto Oudtshoorn along Route 62 and visited an ostrich farm and the Cango caves. In Knysna we stayed over before enjoying a morning at Monkeyland and Birds of Eden outside Plettenberg Bay. Towards Port Elizabeth the weather turned windy and the next few days didn't deliver very pleasant birding. Even so we birded the Swartkops and Sunday's River estuaries and then also the Nahoon estuary at East London. A long and arduous drive got us to Coffee Bay and miserable weather and we stayed just long enough to pay a quick visit to the Hole-in-the-Wall. It was wet and misty all the way to Port St Johns but when we got to Vernon Crookes Nature Reserve the weather was back to pleasant again. Past Durban we went to Umtunzini and then Richards Bay before entering Swaziland and spending a night at Hlane National Park. Then it was onto Kruger National Park and we stayed over in Pretoriuskop, Skukuza, Satara, Letaba and Shingwedzi before finally making our way back home. In total, we drove over 7700kms and identified 361 bird species.