South Africa is the home of numerous cave systems, it is recorded that there are over a hundred caves only in the Cape Peninsula, ranging from small overhangs to lengthy tunnels in Table Mountain, some of which are more than 1km tunnel network under the surface.
With wonderful caving opportunties exist in almost all provinces with the mighty Drakensberg Mountains of KwaZulu-Natal probably the perfect destination to get your caving adrenalin fix.
But you don't have to be a sport and adventure expert to enjoy caving, most caves have been commercialised, which means that there is a tour guide, set route and a safe trail.
Usually there is an adventure route you can choose if youre up for the challenge.
The caves in South Africa promises to give the best of tight spaces and exploration of huge caverns.
Oudtshoorn offers an awesome caving experience at the Cango Caves, with an experienced guide taking you through the huge cave network.
You can choose between the normal and adventure route where you have to crawl and slide at times, going through the legendary "postbox" and the "tunnel of love".
There are over a hundred caves recorded in the Cape Peninsula, mainly Table Mountain, such as Woodstock Cave (up Devils Peak), Elephants Eye Cave (accessible from Tokai Forest or Silvermine), Peers Cave (Ou Kaapse Weg), Kalk Bay Caves, Boomslang Cave (above Kalk Bay) and Wynberg Cave.
Contact the Cape Peninsula Spelaeological Society (CPSS) for more information.
The Drakensberg, known in Zulu as Ukuhlamba, the "barrier of spears", is South Africa's highest mountain range. If the idea of camping in a cave excites you, then the Drakensberg caving experience is for you. Areas like Cathedral Peak, Garden Castle and Thendele in the Royal Natal National Park offer caving opportunities.
Sit around the fire with friends drinking coffee while you watch the snow fall outside and enjoy the beautiful scenery of the world renowned Drakensberg.
In Gauteng, Krugersdorp offers a world of rock formation, from the exquisite beauty of caverns, down to the challenge of squeezing and sliding through narrow passages with the Sterkfontein Caves at the Cradle of Humankind very accessable.
The awe inspiring Sudwala Caves (near Nelspruit) contain the largest dolomite chamber in the world. Formed over a period of some 3000 million years, capturing in stone a time when the area was covered by warm shallow in-land seas, these are amongst the second oldest known sedimentary rocks on the earth, and represented in the cave are fossils of the first oxygen producing plants on the earth.
* Sudwala Tel: 013-733 4152
