Kalk Bay

Peter Swart, Updated 2026

Introduction

How many caves are there on Kalk Bay Mountain? In 1945, J.C.W. Moore, with the assistance of Phil Hitchcock, published article describing 67 (ref 1) of the known caves on the Kalk Bay mountains. This list included descriptions of the caves and their locations. Moore later expanded on this list in a series of articles in early SASA bulletins, and during the late 1950s, The Cape Peninsula Fire Protection Committee (ref 2) published a revised version of Moore's article, with a detailed map (2 inches to the mile) of the cave locations.

During the early years of SASA, the club bulletins constantly refer to the on going survey work which the club was doing at the time, but very little was published, and little is to be found in the club archives. A notable exception to this general trend, is a excellent article by Anthony Keen on the discovery of the extensions to Ronan's Well. (ref 3)

In the early 1980s, Anthony Hitchcock lead a group of SASA members, whose aim was to survey all of the caves on the mountain, which they estimated to be more than 100m long. As time progressed, the task was enlarged to surveying all of the caves listed in the above mentioned publications. As survey work progressed, some caves were linked to each other, and new caves were found. This section is the culmination of this survey work. Surveys and descriptions of all of the caves are given, and notes on the survey and exploration of the caves have been added where appropriate.

Criteria

As the caves in quartzite are rather small when compared to limestone systems, and many are rather insignificant, a set of criteria were used to determine whether the holes ground were caves or not, and whether they should be included in this section, or not.

The criteria which were finally decided upon were:
* The cave must be one of "Meyer's Caves";
* Or The cave must have 10 metres or more of passage;
* Or The cave must be more than 5 metres deep.

Names

Over the years, many of the cave names have changed. The names used here, are mostly those given in Moore's article, and alternative names are listed in the text. Where new caves have been discovered, the names given by the surveyors are used. In the case where two caves have been joined to become one system, both names are given.

References

Moore, J.C.W. (1945) MCSA Journal

Fire Protection Committee. Guide to the Kalk Bay and Muizenberg Mountains. Walks, Caves, Camp Sites. (undated)

Keen, Anthony, 1958 TBD SASA Bulletin.

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