Lakes Cave

Got a chance to do a one nighter with some mates this last weekend. We went up to Lakes Cave (past monster Rocks then left at the "shelter"). The trail and Cave were litter free which was nice to see. The plan had been to get some photos around the tarns in the evening light. Heavy mist, steady rain and the odd bit of thunder and lightening saw us retreat in to sleeping bags with hot chocolate instead!
By Sunday morning the rain had stopped, however, low clouds still hung over the berg and plans of capturing the early morning glow over the surrounding area were scuppered.
We walked back along the ridge above Lakes Cave, past the policeman etc and across to eSiphongweni (with great views and eland scattered across the plateau) and the paintings. We then headed down to Boundary Rock for a much needed swim (the clouds had lifted and the sun was out) and lunch break before the hour long walk back to Cobham.

The "shelter" just beyond Monster Rocks(so marked on the map) showed signs of a wood fire, with candle was adorning one ledge, otherwise - apart from one stray cigerette butt - the trails and caves were clean.

A very good weekend!

Between Nutcracker and Lakes does the trail cross on to the right side of the valley before crossing to the left again below lakes cave?

Looking at Tarn or Gxalingenwa Cave for the next one nighter, anyone have any comments about these caves?

Thanks for the info. Sounds like Tarn Cave will be far more interesting! Decided I want to try get to the Berg as often as I can this year as I didn't do much last year. Thought I'd start with the southern Berg, doing hikes over weekends, moving to the central and northern berg with time.

Hi Errol

The views from Tarn Cave are absolutely stunning !

But ito walk in, you cant beat Gx. Along a river with swimming spots. Huge boulders that belong in an Asterix comic book, and other boulders seeming as they were scattered by some God reading some other's fortune. The cave itself is sheltered, has 'a table', but low roof. A stream runs over it to one side. You can return via a descent by Fingalls Rock through the valley opposite Spectacle cave and turning left at the junction. Turning right would lead you to another of my favourites : Pholela cave.

Thanks for the input.
That sounds good too! Your description has lead to quite an amusing scene in my head, Asterix and co. running around the mountains trying to avoid magic stones flung by the hand of a witch doctor God. That's great. Maybe its only amusing in my head.
Had been looking at coming back via Fingalls Rock (saw a photo in a book -looks interesting) after a night in Gx. Stayed in Spectacle cave a while back, the plan was to head up on to Giants Cup, it didn't go to plan though - no Giants Cup. Think I saw the path heading toward Fingalls Rock from Spectacle Cave? Going to try plan some thing for mid March.

Hi fellow hikers.

I am planning to come out to sa for a few weeks in may and will be doing some of my 'i am so glad to be hiking in the berg again' trips.

I want to do some tarn photography in the southern berg. If anyone has or is going to be going up to Lakes Cave in march or april, please could you take some shots of the tarns above the cave so that i can gauge the water levels.

Thanx
Karl

Hi Jon

Thanx man, appreciate the images. As they say, a picture paints a thousand xl spreadsheets!

Which site are you using for the data? I have accessed a french site that has a station in Shaleburn a couple of km away.

Here is screen grab of the data on an xl spread sheet. The lengths one goes to for good images!

I got it from mnt_tiska.

It takes a bit of figuring out where the things are as it is in french. Although i suppose since english and french have common latin origins, you can work out roughly what everything is.

I had to edit the data to make it more manageable. These are cumulative totals for three month periods.

www.infoclimat.fr/observations-meteo/temps-reel/shaleburn/68572.html#highlight=09