A
fantastic caving weekend at Gobholo in Swaziland with cavers Steven, Sharron,
John, Selena, Terence, Elize; friends and ESSA members Leon, Iris, Andrew,
Gaelle, Frano and Salome. The cave is situated at the end of a lovely 3km
hike through plantation and indigenous forest. The first day was a recce
with cavers and Leon braving his way into a cave and owner of Swazi trails
Darren. The second day was an attempt at finding and surveying a new route
but the passages turned out to be marked already. The third day we found a
new route and surveyed it adding 220m to the existing map, pushing Gobholo up from the 9th to the 8th largest granite cave in the world and only a short bit behind 7th and 6th place. The fourth day
Steven, John and Selena returned to that route hoping to push it further after
rigging a rope ladder going down a tight squeeze but found that it came to an
end. Sharron, Leon and Gaelle spent a day exploring at ground level
looking for potential holes along the route the underground group had gone.
Caving at Gobholo is best described as “underground bouldering” and the
routes underground are a maze. The cave was the 9th longest granite cave
in the world, but after the additional section found this weekend, it is now the
8th longest. The good news is that there is still more to be
explored; we saw the potential but we ran out of time.
Thank you to everyone who came on this trip and made it a wonderful long
weekend of exploration and fun. Thank you Sharron for organising it and
the excellent catering.
Selena Dickie
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