Gcwihaba Caverns (Drotsky's)

Off the main road we head west for around 120 km on sand through thick bushland. A pleasure to drive! I'm happy to be equipped with robust skid plates because occasionally the car's front digs into the sand where the tracks get too deep. It's all about ground clearance :-D

At Gcwihaba Caverns, which have been advertized through a farmer named Drotsky many many years ago, we expect to be alone and camp wildly in the bush. But after 4 h of driving we are welcomed by two guys instead. How strange! One of them works for the national museum as archeologist and geologist and guides us through the caves, knowing and answering everything! The north and south cave entrances are approximately 500m apart and connected with a steep tunnel which is not passable without special equipment. We navigate deep into the caverns around stalagmites and stalactites, walking and crawling on bat poo the whole time and Daniel enjoys the smell. The caverns consist of Dolomite (marble) which has been washed out by ("acidic") water millions of years ago. The walls are covered with white spider nests and we discover three different bat species. It feels like playing a bonus level in the computer game Diablo :-D

There was/is an official campsite which is closed because the elephants destroyed the water pumps. Instead we are shown a beautiful Mapone tree to camp under. Even without any "campsite infrastructure" (we don't need any infrastructure) we are obliged to
pay some dubiously exaggerated fee to the community which we bargain down. We share the spot with a hornbill family ;) In 2017 some other facilities have been built but everything looks deserted as if funding was stopped before completion, probably due to political changes according to the guide's comments.Read more