pgs

Caving Birthday Party

At birthday time in the Swart household, there is always a great debate on the theme of the birthday party. Will it be a ‘Pirate Party’ (again) or a ‘Sausage and Noodle Party’ (very successful) or something else. As soon as a ‘Caving Party’ was mentioned, the debate stopped. We had our theme. 

On Sunday the 24th Jan, 7 boys (Euan turned 7) and their parents met on Boyes Drive and climbed up Echo Valley to the Fish Hoek entrance of Boomslang Cave. Here the boys cooled off after the long climb and tested their torches by exploring White Dome Grotto.

A short while later, we climbed to the top of the mountain and set up camp at the Skylight Entrance to Oread Halls. Anthony and Wendy Hitchcock were left to guard the surface station while the rest of the party headed underground via the lower entrance to Oread Halls. With glow sticks left to mark the way, the boys and parents wormed their way through the crawl and gathered in the Skylight chamber to sign happy birthday to the birthday boy. Some passing hikers took command of our surface station walkie-talkie, and joined in the singing, which was quite fun.

After birthday cake (a cupcake with a candle for each of the seven boys), the party explored the cave as far as Grand Hall and returned to the Skylight Chamber. Anthony had rigged the ladder and each of the boys showed great bravery by zipping up the ladder without a moments hesitation. Quite something as none of them had been told about the ladder beforehand. As chief belayer, Anthony insisted on correct belay patter and all went off without a hitch. Once the boys were done, the Dads were not going to be left out, and they tackled the ladder too.

After more snacks, we returned to the cars via Amazon Forest and Echo Valley. An excellent party was had by all.

Footnote: During the trip we used 2 Oreagon Scientific TP380PC Walkie-Talkies. These are the low power, no license required variety. While in the Grand Hall, I tried to call Anthony on the surface, and to my amazement, we could converse quite clearly. At the time, there was about 20m of rock between the walkie-talkies.