Cango Caves

The Cango Caves are a cave system in South Africa, Western Cape Province and be counted among the most beautiful cave systems in the world.

The cave system is located in the Swartberg Mountains ( in the Little Karoo north of Oudtshoorn ) and consists of three sections ( Cango 1, 2 and 3) with a total length of about four kilometers.

The first and largest chamber is about 90 meters long, 50 meters wide and up to 18 meters high. The narrowest section ( "Letterbox ") carried a distance of 60 cm from the ceiling to the floor and is about 5 feet long.

All caves contain extensive stalactite formations of impressive size. The Cango sections 2 and 3 are protected and not accessible to the public.

History

The entrance of the cave discoveries made ​​prove a long human use of the cave for about 10,000 years.

1780 was the ( re) discovery of the cave by a shepherd. In the same year the farmer van Zyl explored the beginning of the first chamber of the cave system directly behind the entrance.

1792, the cave was explored further and discovered a second chamber.

In 1972, the 270 meter long cave " Cango 2" was discovered, the continuation of the - now called the " Cango 1" - first discovered cave.

1975, the 1600 -meter-long cave " Cango 3" was discovered.

Visit

Cango 1 is open to the public - as part of a normal tour is about 600 m, in the context of enhanced survey are about 1200 m accessible. The once hard to reach way over stones and columns were with mud, which had originally blocked the cave entrance, leveled.

Location

The Cango Caves are located about 29 km north of Oudtshoorn on the R 328 and are considered an attraction in the Garden Route.