Sudwala Caves

Sudwala is cut into Precambrian dolomite, rock laid down something like 2,000 million years ago, with the cave system itself formed far later - the operators put the caves at around 240 million years, which would make them among the oldest known. The standard tour goes through a series of chambers to the Amphitheatre, a large space with acoustics good enough that concerts have been held in it, and guides point out stromatolites in the walls: fossil structures built by colonies of blue-green algae, some of the earliest evidence of life on earth. Air moves through the system so it stays breathable deep in. A longer crystal tour, offered by arrangement, crawls through tighter passages to a chamber of aragonite crystals and takes several hours. The caves were used as a refuge in the nineteenth century and, according to the standard telling, as a hiding place for a Boer gold shipment that has never been found.

What you actually see

• The stromatolites - fossil algae colonies in the cave walls, among the oldest life traces.
• The Amphitheatre - a chamber with acoustics used for concerts.
• The ancient dolomite - rock roughly 2,000 million years old holding the system.
• The crystal tour - a long crawl to an aragonite chamber, by arrangement only.

When to go

All year - constant temperature inside. Two hours for the standard tour.

Honest expectations

Guided tours only, on a schedule, and the standard route is short. The crystal tour is several hours of crawling and not for the claustrophobic or unfit. It is humid inside. The lost-gold story is folklore, not documented history.

Nearby

The Sudwala dinosaur park is at the same site; Mbombela is west.