Exploring the Cango Caves and a surprise waterfall.

We headed out of Oudtshoorn and on to the Cango Caves. This is one of the most amazing natural sites I have ever seen. The cave system is huge and has really big chambers in places, plus really small squeeze spaces in others. Alongside a small amount of rock art, some of the rock formations seem to have pictures in them and there are some really ancient stalagmites and stalactites in there too. There are three sections made of different chambers and passageways. Visitors can explore the first two and watch a video of explorers in the third chamber - now shut from the public and scientists for preservation reasons. There are two tours, the hour Heritage Tour and the hour and a half Adventure Tour. The Heritage Tour is an easy walking tour, with lots of information  as you walk through the large chambers and passages. The Adventure Tour has more crawl spaces, small passages and is more like pot holing for beginners. We opted for the Heritage Tour to leave our fears of claustrophobia behind. 

Bushman rock art.

"Ads are the cave art of the twentieth century." - Marshall McLuhan

At the start of the tour and the top of the cave system there was evidence that the San Bushmen had lived in the top few caves, our guide reported that the caves were a good place to stay, but the bushmen were afraid to go further into the system and largely stayed in this top cave for fear of what lay within.

Large rock formation in the top cave.

This first chamber is huge and contains some amazing formations, stalagmites and stalactites. This chamber was so large it had a stage built into it and used to host classical concerts until guests started to venture further into the cave system and snap off pieces of the formations as souvenirs. In places formations that had taken hundreds of years to form had been tragically badly damaged.

"The need to make music, and to listen to it, is universally expressed by human beings. I cannot imagine, even in our most primitive times, the emergence of talented painters to make cave paintings without there having been, near at hand, equally creative people making song. It is, like speech, a dominant aspect of human biology." - Lewis Thomas

 Here are some of the formations and pictures our guide shared...

 This one was like organ pipes.

  This one was like a chandelier.

This formation was a stalagmite and a stalactite that had met in the middle and was hundreds of years old.

Waterfall.

There were so many pictures in this section of formations from faces to whales and dolphins.

Here are the stack of whales.

There is a face in this one.

This is an angels wing and there is a bible at the bottom.

 This was called the bridal chamber as the formation looks like a four poster bed.

See the eagle with its beak hanging down?

 And the rhinos eye and horn?

At the end of a tour we watched a video about the exploration team accessing the final section of the cave system. The way in seemed rather treacherous through underwater caves and tunnels, but the formations made from natural crystals and gemstones in here are stunning. The system is now sealed of to preserve it and may never be opened again, so it was great to see the video of it.

We drove on and found a sign to a waterfall and deceided to have a little walk in the veldt to see it. It must have been around 100m tall and it was well worth the detour.

"If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there." - Lewis Carroll

"The point is that when I see a sunset or a waterfall or something, for a split second it's so great, because for a little bit I'm out of my brain, and it's got nothing to do with me. I'm not trying to figure it out, you know what I mean? And I wonder if I can somehow find a way to maintain that mind stillness." - Chris Evans

 
The pools at the bottom were quite deep.

And the waterfall kept dropping as the river wound its way through the forest.

Before we knew it we were back on our way over to a lovely winery and spa...

...we headed off on Route 62 and kept taking in the stunning scenery.

"Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it." - Greg Anderson