Cave Tours
Close to Oudtshoorn, in the foothills of the towering Swartberg Mountains, are the justifiably famous Cango Caves. 60 minute tours through these dripping limestone caverns leave on the hour, and a special 90 minute Adventure Tour leaves every hour on the half hour.
The latter is only recommended for people who are NOT claustrophobic and who have a reasonable degree of fitness. Any old plodder will enjoy the regular tour. All the tours must be booked in advance due to the high demand of visitors and to aid in conserving this non-renewable resource. If you like gravel roads, take the detour from the Cango Caves towards the Rust-en-Vrede waterfall.
This beautiful 74 metre plunge can be reached by following signs for Raubenheimer Dam from the Cango Caves road. From the waterfall, you can either turn back to Oudtshoorn, or continue on until you hit the N12 below De Rust.
Amazing Stuff
Calcium carbonate is amazing stuff: it can make the hardest of rocks and the most fragile of nautilus shells, and it can constitute soaring and jagged mountains, and yet be dissolved away by rain. Whether you call it limestone or dolomite, it's pretty much all the same stuff - the material that was once coral reefs or shell beds and has been compressed under successive layers of eroded material on the earth's surface.
And that is what Oudtshoorn's Cango Caves are, or were - coral reefs from a time when the earth was very young (Precambrian). Local legend has it they were discovered by a Jacobus van Zyl back in 1780, but there is no record of such a person. It was definitely known of before then as the entrance to the main Van Zyl's Hall chamber was home to Stone Age people modern human time began.
The San people who left their marks in the entrance chamber of Oudtshoorn’s Cango Caves were unlikely to have known just how big their home really was. In fact, even the first recorded expedition into the caves in 1780, using oil-soaked torches, got only a hint of how vast the cavern system is. Van Zyl’s hall, into which the entrance chamber leads, is nearly 100 metres long, 50 metres wide and 15 metres high.
Crammed with stalactites, helicities and fantastical dripstone formations, the System of chambers that is open to the public is a kilometer long - and that’s just Cango 1. There are four cavern systems total, the last two being partially or totally underwater. The total known cave System is nearly 4 kilometres long in all probability there is still more to be discovered, but what you get to see on the daily tours is more than enough to take your breath away.
The caves are hot and humid and the tunnels get narrower and smoother. While the limestone drip formations do show wear of thousands of visitors through the years, it's still spectacular.
Cango Wildlife Ranch
Stroll the raised boardwalk known as the 'catwalk' at the Cango Wildlife Ranch in Oudtshoorn and you will realise that it's a bit more than a petting zoo. See meerkats, cheetah, lion, puma, jaguar and white Bengal tigers (rather far from home aren't they?) or visit the snake park and crocodile pools, for some large and rare reptiles.
Did you Know? The Crocodile can bite with a force of up to 140 kg/cm2 — the greatest of any large animal (beaten, apparently, only by the snapper turtles of southeastern United States of America).
Accommodation in Oudtshoorn consists of quaint guesthouses, charming bed & breakfasts and beautiful lodges with splendid views of the area's...
Oudtshoorn is the largest town in the little Karoo. Oudtshoorn is also home to one of the world's greatest wonders, the magnificent Cango Ca...