Three members from the Tygerberg section, six from the Cape Town section and four from the Stellenbosch Section plus one guest met on a misty Saturday morning at the secured parking area by the Kylemore gate (Rooi straat) that gives access to the private farm Old Bethlehem and the Dwarsrivier valley, now part of the Banhoek conservancy.
The Banhoek Conservancy established in 2015 by a group of private farmers and landowners with ideas to protect the environment, re-introducing game, eradicating alien vegetation as well as uplifting the nearby communities, is a wonderful example of how human activities and nature can be re-combined. Our activities are mainly exploring the kloofs, the caves and waterfalls hidden in the Groot Drakenstein mountains. With a CapeNature special use permit the Stellenbosch committee had organised, we were able to go off-trail and re-discover some of the old climbing routes that have been described in 1960 and1970’s journals. Also the time when the Stellenbosch Section had their Banhoek hut built and the areas between Duiwelskloof, Hutchinson buttress and the Banhoek valley to Banhoek Spitskop was their playing ground.
My idea was to select one or two kloofs and to visit three caves on Buller’s Kop.
Starting on the Waterfall trail (part of the Banhoek trails) we followed partially the river bed into Volstruiskloof. After crossing Skyfall MBT trail we went off-route towards a gully that is described as the “B” route on Buller’s by CM Spottiswoode and company. A few years ago Theunis Cilliers, Leon Visser and I explored a traverse from the “B” route leading into Volstruiskloof ending at the bottom of the 55m waterfall (or for the kloofers abseil Nr 8 out of the baby’s bath). The traverse takes us directly under the well-known XANADU cave, described by CM Spottiswoode and visible from the valley below.
Eight of us managed to climb up and abseiled out of it, while of the rest of the party stayed, waited, and showered at the shallow pool under the waterfall. That was the only fresh flowing water for the rest of our trip. With full water bottles and bags we retraced on the traverse and we continued further up the “B” route. About 30 min later we arrived in the big and magnificent cave (which we now call Cathedral cave) not visible from below. It was an exceptionally warm and calm evening enjoyed by all of us.
The next morning, we left our packs in the kloof nearby after finding one small water hole and went over to the west to another cave which we called baviaansgrot because of the abundance of baboon markings. We headed down the same way as before until we were back on the Banhoek trails. A quick visit to the ruins of the Banhoek hut and a stop for lunch at the Eikenhof waterfall rounded off our exploratory adventures with a bit of nostalgia.
Please feel free to see our pictures via the link: https://photos.app.goo.gl/zBFycExDcV9Kc3Av8
