Sudwala Caves

Useful Information

Location:	37 km from Nelspruit, Mpumulanga, South Africa. From N4, the main road which leads from Johannesburg to Nelspruit, follow R539 Sabie Road 5 min. (-25.369751, 30.699471)
Open:	All year daily 8:30-16:30. Crystal Tour: first Sat of month 9:30. [2023]
Fee:	Adults ZAR 110, Children (5-15) ZAR 60, Children (0-4) free, Seniors (60+) ZAR 90. Crystal Tour: Per Person ZAR 750, booking required. [2023]
Classification:	Karst cave
Light:	Incandescent Electric Light System
Dimension:	T=17 °C. Biggest room: P.R. Owen Hall W=70 m, H=37 m.
Guided tours:	Cave Tour: L=1,200 m, D=60 min. The Crystal Tour: D=300 min, L=2000 m.
Photography:	allowed
Accessibility:	no
Bibliography:
Address:	Sudwala Caves, PO Box 48, Schagen 1207, Tel: +27-83-446-0228, Tel: +27-72-497-8268. E-mail:
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

early 1800's	the king of the Swazis, Sobhuza, found shelter in the caves while hiding from the militant Ndwandwe Zulu tribe.
late 1800's	Rider Haggard visited Sudwala Caves.
1899-1902	during the Anglo-Boer War the Boers stored ammunition for the heavy 94-pounder Long Tom guns in Sudwala Caves.
1914	a company was formed to excavate huge amounts of bat guano as fertilizer.
1965	Philippus Rudolf Owen bought the farm, built a road to the cave and developed it.
1966	opened to the public.
1967	electric light installed.
1970	Ivan Rebroff tested the accoustics of P.R. Owen Hall being "...at least equal if not superior to those of any concert hall or opera house in Europe".
1999	cave is for sale.

Description

Sudwala Caves is obviously South Africa's best-known show cave. It is a karst cave with quite spectacular speleothems, and of decent size. Opened to the public in 1966 it is most likely the first show cave of the country, and as a result it is on top of most tourist destination lists of the country.

The area of Mpumalanga, the Malmani Ridge where the caves are located, is covered by granites and gneisses, crystalline rock formed during the Archaean (4-2.5 Ga). Although there are very few rocks on earth which are that old, South Africa is famous for having the oldest rocks which are found in great amounts. The dolomites of the Transvaal Supergroup are in the Malmani Subgroup and are of Early Proterozoic age, which is between 2.6 and 2.5 Billion years old. The Malmani Dolomites are one of the oldest dolomite formations known. Limestone and dolomite are in general biogene rocks, in other words, they are crated by biological processes. The necessary elements are eroded from crystalline rocks and recombined by marine life which uses the calcite for their skeletons. There are actually (almost) no limestones and dolomites which are older than 2.5 Ga because this is the beginning of the Proterozoic, where the first multi-celled organisms lived.

However, as always there are exceptions, and for carbonates there are actually two. The first alternative is evaporation, when seawater evaporates, the minerals dissolved in the water are first enriched, and when finally the saturation limit is reached, they are precipitated. This evaporation sequence typically begins with limestone, then gypsum, and finally various salts including rock salt and soda ash. The other alternative are unicellular marine microorganisms, in this case so-called collenia or blue-green algae, some of the oldest life forms on earth. They are algae growing on rocks in the surf, and they got anything they needed for living from the surrounding seawater, either they metabolized it or they deposited it, like the carbonates. So they built massive cones of dolomite with thin layers, which are today easily visible on the ceiling of Sudwala Cave and they are called stromatolites. The stromatolitic limestones of the Schmidtsdrif Formation (Transvaal Dolomite) have been dated lately to be 2.5 Ga old.

The caves are one of the oldest cave systems on earth, but definitely not the oldest. The caves were formed during the Permian, about 240 Ma ago, some formations in the cave have been dated to be 200 Ma old. At the moment the oldest valid date for a cave is from Jenolan Caves in Australia, where a cave sediment has been dated to be about twice as old.

But we believe Sudwala Cave contains the largest dolomite chamber in the world. Unfortunately there is no official list of cave chambers in dolomite. P.R. Owen Hall, named after Philippus Rudolf Owen, the former owner of the cave, is about 70 m in diameter and 37 m in height. The largest chamber in limestone, Sarawak Chamber in Borneo, is 641 m long and 429 m wide. But on the other hand, dolomite is less soluble, and dolomite caves are generally much smaller than limestone caves. We find it plausible that this superlative is true. However, the hall is definitely impressively independent of the statistic facts. Because of its extraordinary good accoustics it is used for occasional concerts. Ivan Rebroff, the German tenor, tested the acoustics being "...at least equal if not superior to those of any concert hall or opera house in Europe".

The tourist route through the cave is about 600 m long, but as it is a dead end, the visitor has to walk back the same path. The cave entrance is located on the hillside, with a nice view, and the cave is going into the hill horizontally. So it is strange to speak of deepness, but the passages are covered by up to 120 m of rocks.

There is also a monthly cave trekking tour which takes five hours and ends at the crystal chamber containing aragonite crystals. This tour is called Crystal Tour. Participants have to crawl, and there are some wet passages, but the difficulty is called moderate as no vertical parts exist. Bring appropriate clothes, good shoes, towel and dry clothes to change afterwards.

There is a legend how the cave was discovered in the early 19th century.

The cave was discovered by Somquba, son of Swazi King Sobhuza I. The king had a dispute with his brother Mswati which involved substantial numbers of royal cattle. In fear they built a village next to the cave entrance hid in the cave every time Mswati and his punitive parties arrived. Mswati tried in vain to smoke them out by making huge fires in the entrance. But one day he struck unexpectedly and killed Sobhuza. The remains of Sobhuza's tribe had a new headman or Induna named Sudwala, hence the name of the cave.

During the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) the Boers stored ammunition for the heavy 94-pounder Long Tom guns in Sudwala Caves. At the end of the war President Paul Kruger hid a gold treasure which consisted of thousands of gold coins and is now worth USD 500 million. Rumours said that he had hidden it in the Sudwala Caves, and since that time soldiers of fortune have been searching for the treasure. So far it has not been found.

The huge main chamber was used for concerts since the 1970s. It seated 500 people and has a great acoustics. Even the temperature is acceptable. But after a nasty case of vandalism during an event they were discontinued.