Groot River Mouth East Cave
Length: 53m | Grade: 5D | Surveyed: 2001-04-18
Peter Swart
March 2019
Peter Swart and Anthony Hitchcock
The main objective of the trip was to find the guano cave at the eastern end of the National Park. We found an old forestry map in the Cape Archives on which the cave entrance is marked. Staff at the National Park directed us to Mr Peter Kerr, the owner of the farm above the cave. We drove along very bumpy potholed dirt roads on our way to the farm. On the way we saw a large billboard advertising milk which read, ‘Get High on Milk Our Cows Are on Grass’. Having absorbed this sobering sign we went in search of Mr Kerr who proved to be a most friendly gentleman. He kindly gave us permission to cross his land.
We followed a track heading towards the coast which ended in a turning bay. A small, steep path descended to the rocky coast and we traversed along the rocks until we reached the mouth of the Groot Rivier. We found the cave entrance in the western bank less than 100m from the mouth of the Groot River.
The cave is a large vertical crack extending into the cliff for about 60m. Much of the entrance is blocked by a large wind blown sand dune and the overhang is used as a storage area for canoes. The entrance dune acts as a dam wall and keeps seepage water in the cave. This water forms a large pool that stretches for about 40m to the back of the cave. The pool is well over a metre deep in places.
We borrowed one of the canoes at the entrance and paddled our way to the end of the cave. Anthony Hitchcock, Nadine Swart (my wife) and I surveyed the cave using a canoe to paddle to the end of the passage. We found a colony of about 150 bats at the end of the crack. They appeared to be Rhinolophus and two species of Miniopterus. Some were very small and dark, while others were slightly larger, and had light brown patches on them. Anthony went off and explored the river up stream. He found two small caves on the eastern bank. The first cave was quite small, and not worth surveying.
Survey
Survey — Groot River Mouth East Cave — click image to open PDF