Die Hel C Ghost Frog Cave

Peter Swart, 1996

Cave C is the northern most cave on the eastern side of the pool. The cave can be split into three parts: The eastern chamber, midsection, and the western network section. The eastern chamber has a high level entrance on a cliff side balcony, and is linked to the network section via a narrow passage and a small chamber, one side of which has collapsed. Most of the entrances of the network section of the cave open out directly onto the pool.

The balcony entrance to the eastern side of the cave was formed by a collapse of part of the cliff. The collapse must be fairly old, as the amorphous silica formations (1), examples of which are found throughout the cave, have formed on top of some of the collapse debris. This entrance leads down a steep, narrow section of passage, to a large chamber. (24m long by 4m-5m wide) Like most of the passages in this cave, it is much higher than it is wide (6m high x 1m wide). The floor of the passage consists of course grains of deep red silica material. The floor of the chamber to which the entrance passage leads, slopes up towards the east. Bats roost in the roof of this chamber, and much guano lies piled on the floor. Deep red flowstone-like formations decorate small sections of the wall of the chamber and small stalactites (approximately 1cm long x 4mm diameter) were found. No minerals were collected, so the composition of these formations is not known.

The mid section of the cave consists of another vertical passage, which leads to a small chamber. This chamber opens onto the same collapse which forms the balcony entrance, and also leads down to the network section. A stream flows from the eastern chamber, through the midsection, and towards the network section. The floor of most of this midsection of the cave is made up of fine, red dust.

As the plan of the cave shows, the network section consists of a number of parallel passages, all running approximately north-west. These are interlinked by smaller cross passages. Some of the cracks in which the parallel passages have developed, have passage at more than one level. These passages appear to have been truncated by the development of the river gorge, as they all end in entrances overlooking the pool. Much drift wood and river debris has collected in these entrances, some of it more than 4m above the current water level. From the outside, the driftwood caught in the cave entrances looked like a number of giant birds nests, so this series of entrances became known as Birds Nest Windows.

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