KwaXolo Caves Adventures

If you fancy a day trip on the lower South Coast that involves a short hike, magnificent scenery and a chance to view a recent thrilling historic discovery, then a guided Kwaxolo Caves Adventure needs to be on your list for your next family holiday or team-building experience.

Just a 30-minute drive (inland) from Margate, these once inaccessible caves were discovered as recently as 2020 and have since become a popular tourist attraction in this part of KZN.

Now a fixed cable along the gorge precipice means that you can hike down to the caves along a route where the San might have walked, and explore the caves where ancient art adorns the walls of these 100 000 year-old open rock shelters.

 

 

If you’re not much of a hiker, are a bit nervous about the level of climbing – or have a fear of heights – then let me share my firsthand experience… and reassure you that if I could do it, you can too!

 

 

Your experienced guide will meet you at the start of the trail, and every one is fitted with harnesses and safety helmets. The experience is open to anyone over the age of eight, and the route to the caves is only 300 meters each way, so it’s not strenuous at all.

 

The walking path down to the caves does involve a bit of climbing though – on rungs fixed to rocks – but be assured that the steel cables on the cableway that you’re hooked up to all the way, is a system that was designed by the same engineers who created the Wild Swing at Oribi Gorge.

As you move along the (sometimes precarious) path, you clip and unclip one safety clip at a time (one remains securely clipped to the steel cableway at all times) and move along the route at your own pace.

Once I’d got the hang of all the unclipping and clipping (bad pun), I was able to relax and enjoy the magnificent scenery. And the chance to view something so ancient, and yet so recently discovered, when I reached the caves, made the jolts of adrenaline when I had to feel for the foot rungs on the occasional bit of rock climbing, worth it.

The cave paintings are of huge cultural and spiritual significance to the San people and are believed to represent shaman journeys into the spiritual world in attempts to bring rain and heal sickness.

 

 

 

Bring your own picnic and enjoy a meal out in nature, against a spectacular backdrop of mountainside and waterfall.

• Cost: R150 per person
• Duration of trip: Approximately 90 minutes
• To book: Phone or WhatsApp 074 8873 742 or Facebook page KwaXolo Caves Adventures

 

For a unique nature-based heritage experience, visitors can visit the KwaXolo Caves, home to historical San rock paintings dating back centuries. There is a guided hiking route with visitors securely harnessed as they walk along the mountainside, enjoying views of the valley and waterfall. There are also picnic sites near the caves.

Cost: R150 per adult, R120 per child 8 to 16 years             

Photos: Sasha Wyatt-Minter

 

Sasha is a freelance journalist and has a passion for writing, reading, good food and wine. She’s obsessed with the IDEA of healthy eating (as well as chocolate – dark of course) and is always experimenting with alternative health therapies and trying to get the family to eat less sugar. Her best reward at the end of a busy week: a good book or time to sit on the beach and stare at the sea: whichever option is available.