Slimy Boulder Cave

Field	Detail
Surveys	Survey (gif), Survey (pdf) (2 Meg)
Dimensions	Length: 105 m
Rock	Table Mountain Sandstone

Slimy Boulder Cave is a forked sea cave that is above the high tide mark for all but the stormiest spring high tides. The cave has a high, wide entrance, with two passages leading off the entrance. The right-hand passage is a narrow, 25 m long slot. The back of the slot has been plugged with sand, and a small tube in the sand appears to lead down to the original floor level. If this tube is excavated, it may lead to further cave passage.

The left-hand passage is the more interesting of the two. It slopes slightly upwards, and penetrates the mountain for about 80 m. For most of the length of the cave, the passage is less than 2 m wide and about 1.5 m high. The floor consists of well-cemented boulders, and in places these boulders form a ridge down the centre of the passage. As the ridge slopes off to the side of the passage, so do the walls of the passage. This gives the impression that the bedrock passage floor is actually well below the apparent floor level, and that the boulder pile floor is at least 1.5 m thick.

Towards the back of the cave there are a number of calcite formations. Although these are quite small, they are interesting in that some of the formations are both black and white. There are also small scatterings of bat guano in the cave. It appears that the cave is used as a temporary home for a few solitary bats rather than a permanent roost.

Unless the cave passage continues below the current level of the boulder-filled floor, there is little potential for extending this cave.

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