Jason Ruger
For years I had waited to be guided through the big daddy of Kalk Bay caves- Ronan's Well. My adventuring cohort, always keen to follow me on some ill prepared schlep, and rsquo, had once found the entrance and crawled as far as the first well, and having no knowledge and a suddenly dwindling sense of adventure turned back and vowed to come again with the help of a friend in the know. I had been captivated by electric recounts of Dylan’s last venture, so when he suggested we make a trip to celebrate his birthday, I needed not to be asked twice. There were eleven of us, mostly novice cavers, including a few girls. Anna, Dylan’s wife, is no manicure and make-up type, but tougher than nails, so with her taking up the rear of a long train of excited cavers, and Dylan negotiating the front, we were in safe and confident hands.
We started in the obscure entrance of Robin Hood's caverns and pressed further inwards until that damp cold settled in and the silence of womb closed in on us. There was little time to adjust to new surroundings and before long we were crawling through narrow tunnels, much to the chagrin of our largest member. He was always close behind Dylan. His shrieks were a testament to the tight squeezes in store for those behind, and were often quite unsettling. It’s almost nice to have a larger person lead - it takes the edge of, because if he can get through so can you. This was our maxim as things grew hairy; our dopamine if you will, and normally the prelude to many tutorials given by the chuffed person that’s always one tricky section ahead.
Once in Robin Hoods Cavern, we surrounded ourselves in candles and took up pews in the centre. Comrade Dylan took up a perch at the alter and echoed his voice loud across the cavern. I fancied we were a clan of inbreds living in caves and feasting on the dwindling stocks of fresh water shrimp, always hiding one cavern away from a frustrated conservationist, or an underground pagan cult reveling in our secrecy and plotting our emergence into the world with a mission to rule it. My reverie ended and we set of further into the heart of the mountain, falling into a new order and carried along the narrow corridors, and along ledges smoothed by explorers gone before ... Interesting but I needed more. We returned along the same path. I got little accordance from the others on my comments about how coming along the same path the other way round, makes it seem almost unfamiliar. Anna and rsquo, always keen to keep high the adrenaline, explored numerous offshoots, one in particular went for several meters then made a switchback on itself, but underneath the way we had come, it became frighteningly narrow, so we chickened out, but swore that one day we would give it the attention it deserved. The entrance to Ronan's wells from inside Robin hoods caverns was a neat tunnel that appeared as if it had been fashioned by gnomes, or worse, orcs. It seemed that it housed some creature of unspeakable habits, perhaps the creature we named that day the 'Klaufenwolfen’. My anticipation for the narrows was uncontrollable, I knew we had arrived when the procession came to a halt and rsquo and cousin were left chatting while watching the frightful expressions of each successive person about to enter. Most amusing of all was watching their faces growing ever grim as the man in front fought for his freedom.
I must admit, a party of eleven was too much and made the going very slow, it took us 25 minutes to cross the narrows, and often we would be forced to halt in the most awkward positions - hands behind the back, pants half down and perhaps an ankle twisted upon itself. Ray was doing surprisingly well, and I think in time began feeling more at home, for this reason his sudden impromptu yelps were extra unnerving, the longer time passed between each outcry the more we got used to not expecting them, and hence the more unsettling they were when we did. At one point, quite near the end of the narrows we heard him in a panicky voice, - cant get through I’m going back’, along followed Dylan’s Tony Robbins style you-can-do-it tutorials, I'm sure one or two of us listening quietly soaked up some of the advice too, and glad we were of Dylan’s unargumentable insistence that turning back was no option. However we all had to worm ourselves backwards several feet to allow Ray to adjust himself, for me it meant doing what I thought was the toughest section twice.
By the days end Ray looked like he had been throwing himself up against the walls of a human sized cheese grater. We all marveled at his impressive wounds and believed that his career in spelunking, although short, would be quite memorable.
I intend on finding other great caves in the Kalk bay mountains, I don’t mean the obvious ones, but the ones whose whereabouts have gone to the grave. I’ve heard there are something like 86. People generally seem to only know about 15 of them. Where are the others, and of those how many can give Ronan’s wells a run for its money. Until then .../p>