Peter Swart
March 1996

Introduction

Looking up from Milner Vlakte, towards the Shale Peaks, one cannot help but notice a large black spot on the mountainside. On closer inspection, the black spot turns into a large cave entrance, 10m high and 30m across. The floor of the impressive entrance chamber is covered in rock debris, and roof consists of 5 large arches, with skylight slots in between them. Morgan Behr found a description of the cave in a Mountain Club Journal (

Lotz, 1975) and visited the cave at the end of 1995. He was instantly declared the resident on the cave, and was persuaded to lead a SASA meet to Milner Vlakte.

Survey and Exploration

Our rather full weekend started on Friday evening, when we camped at the foot of the mountain near, a dam. We turned in early, as Morgan had on the March before 6am. We climbed up to the Vlakte, and camped within about an hours walk of the cave. After a brief lunch we made our way to the entrance, and were greeted by the welcome coolness of the entrance chamber. While Alister, Celeste and Rosemary went for a walk, Morgan, Daryll Holland, Anthony Keen, Joan Vlok and I set about surveying the cave. By 4pm we had finished the survey, and went across to a second cave where we stopped for tea. By this stage we were quite tired, and were running out of time. We explored the second, smaller cave, and decided that a second trip would be needed to survey it.

An exhausted party returned to camp. After supper, to clouds rolled in, and it poured with rain. On Sunday morning, we beat a hasty retreat, and were back at the cars by early afternoon.

Cave Description

The cave is a 100m long, 30m wide tube that runs down, the mountain, parallel to the slope. In the entrance chamber of the cave, the floor is littered with boulder debris from collapses, and the chamber is lit, not only by light from the huge entrance, but also from wide joints in the roof. These joints separate 5 rock arches, which fuse in places, to form the roof of the entrance chamber. The floor of the cave rises with the mountain slope, at an angle of approximately 25 degrees. There is an entrance half way along the cave, and another at the top end.

From the main, lower entrance to the middle entrance, much of the floor is formed by large boulders which have fallen from the ceiling, but between the middle entrance and the rear entrance, the floor is bedrock, which has been polished by flowing water. Along most of the length of the cave, silica formations occur. Some of these form small stalactites, while others form silica popcorn. Many of these are in the form of a crust, and have formed on top of the major floor debris. This indicates that some of the larger collapses occurred a long time ago.

The top entrance of the cave is formed by a collapse in the plate that forms the roof of the cave. The collapse divides the top entrance into northern and southern parts. The southern entrance is low and narrow. The small stream that flows into this entrance makes the floor very slippery, despite the numerous small ridges in the floor. The northern entrance is quite large, and leads down into the cave over a boulder strewn slope. The roof and floor of the passage along the northern wall are covered with small silica formations.

Conclusion

Just to the east of the main cave, is the second cave. Although it is not as big as the main cave, it is just as interesting. Unfortunately, we did not have time to survey the cave. The topography of the area suggests that these are not the only caves in the area, and further exploration may well reveal more caves.

The traditional view amongst cavers in the Western Cape, is that high concentrations of sandstone caves in this region only occur in the Cape Peninsula. These caves in the Hex River Mountains, the nearby caves on the University of Cape Town Zuurberg property, and the caves at Die Hel in the Groot Winterhoek, suggest that this may not be true. Many more caves but may well be distributed throughout the mountains of the Western Cape, waiting to reveal themselves to those who actually go looking for them.

Bibliography

Lotz, E. 1975; Cave on Milnervlakte Hexriver Mountains. Journal of the Mountain Club of South Africa, Vol 78, p79, 1975

---

Cave on Milnervlakte

Hexriver Mountains

By E. Lotz
[Originally published in Journal of the Mountain Club of South Africa, Vol 78, p79, 1975, Translated by Peter Swart]

For some mountaineers, each climb is a miniature journey of exploration. It is these climbers that disappear as soon as the party arrives at a campsite, and return hours later, having carefully explored every inch of the land within a 2km radius of the camp. This is how Frans Frige discovered the cave. Who else would have gone pottering around on those rocky slopes after the long, hot climb up to the plateau? We had already started supper by the time Frans returned from his wonderings. "Just over there is a cave so big, that a team of oxen pulling a wagon could get lost in it.," he announced casually. Naturally, nobody believed him. We, of course, knew that there were no such places in the area. The next morning, he showed us. What a surprise. We were in the front, and out of the back, and awarded the discoverer full marks for his find.

The front part of the cave consists of five rock arches, right up against each other, each about 30m long and 6m high. The floor slopes up, and is strewn with boulders. An opening at the back, leads to a tunnel, which has side chambers leading off it. The tunnel is so dark, that one needs a torch, so as not to fall into the holes between the boulders. Eventually, about 120m from the entrance, one crawls over a wet rock slab, and out of the back of the cave. There is another exit just to the right, and in front of slab, ('Elsie's Exit'), but walking out is cheating! The reason for the dampness on rock slab, is the clear, cool stream which flows through the cave. Following this stream, gives one a good idea of how the cave must have been formed.

As we are not all Frans Kriges, a description of how to get there is not out of place. Walk in a westerly direction over the plateau, while keeping as close as possible to the slopes on the southern side. From the usual camp site, it takes about 20 minutes to reach a rock pinnacle which looks like a finger pointing at the slope. Clamber diagonally up to the right, following the odd beacon, and you should soon see a long overhang above.

The cave is on the same level as the overhang, but around the corner to the right. It should take about 20 minutes from the rock pinnacle to the cave, which is about 150m above the level of the plateau.

⮤ Back to Zuurberg

Survey

Survey

⮤ Back to Zuurberg