Discovering the Secret Caves of Cape Town

Few people know that in the sandstone mountains behind Kalk Bay and Muizenberg in Cape Town there are hundreds of hidden caves. Some of them are quite dangerous as they contain sudden drops. However, Boomslang Cave above Kalk Bay is considered fairly safe to visit. My young nephew and his family were visiting from Johannesburg and he was extremely keen to tackle this cave again (we'd done it once before).

Here he is poised to enter the low, hidden entrance.

IMG_3282.JPG

It was a gorgeous day in Cape Town when we started the hike, here we are above at the start of the steep ascent off Boyes Drive in Kalk Bay. Cape Point can be seen in the distance.

IMG_3267.JPG

The route is a relatively short, but very steep climb up Echo Valley towards the cliffs where the caves are found.

IMG_3268.JPG

Despite the drought, there are still some gorgeous flowers to be seen. Pink Ericas and startlingly blue Aristeas.

IMG_3273.JPG

IMG_3274.JPG

The entrance to the cave is very unassuming, it is a small hole that leads to a sandy passage where you have to crawl on your hands and knees for about 5 metres before the cave opens up to a large cavern. Here's a picture of us in the first main cavern.

IMG_3289.JPG

From there one has to clamber through several narrow passages.

IMG_3290.JPG

Until you spot daylight again! After about 200 metres, we were through to the other side of the mountain.

IMG_3293.JPG

To be greeted with a magnificent view of False Bay, with Fish Hoek beach and Simon's Town visible in the distance.

IMG_3298.JPG

Another fabulous walk in the magnificent mountains above Cape Town.

Sort:  

The area surrounding Cape Town looks so beautiful! Did you have to overcome yourself crawling into the cave?


Upvoted and resteemed by the @Climbing-Trail!

The @Climbing-Trail is an account dedicated to giving climbing and hiking a platform here on Steemit. It is manually curated by @HaTo.

You can upvote this comment if you like to support the @Climbing-Trail and follow if you want to discover quality content like this on a regular basis!

Yes, Cape Town offers many fantastic hikes. It was a bit scary crawling into the cave, but we'd done it before so we knew it would be okay.

Haha, great! It's like getting into the underworld!

With that landscape, I can imaging that there are a lot of great hikes. I hope you share some more with us. :-)