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Emily's Trip
hi everyone!
man it feels so weird but so great to think that i'm gonna see everyone in like 2 days :o) really cant wait even though it'll be kind of weird to be back after so long...
today i am at backpackers paradise (which is really really nice) in oudtshoorn and i spent the day sort of doing the joyride!
we were driven up to the top of the swartsbergpas which is 1582 km high and we cycled all the way down to the cango caves and then the origional plan was to continue to do on and do the ostrich farm but you remember how i messed up my knee a bit in the crash... well it seems a bit more than i expected - was objecting to the pedalling motion quite a lot after a while and i had to go straight home after the caves; i still however had to cycle it, there wasnt a lift so it was a combination of cycling and walking the bike all the 56km back to the lodge!!!
yeh you read write 56km!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ouch!
the cango caves though... i'm so glad i went on the trip despite having to sort of cut it short because the free cycle down the pass was pretty darn cool, was sooooo steep that forget pedalling it was more like sore hands from having to break a lot lol! at the top it was SO windy we couldnt see for all our air blowing everywhere and stuff!!!!! was pretty exhilerating!
we got down to the caves and had the tour... we all decided to go for the "adventure tour" which involved going further into the cave through all these TINY and i mean REALLY TINY passages!
it was such a dramatic site it really was!!! the formations and structures in there was really stunningly beautiful and awe inspiring (unlike the 200 steps up and down there and back - that wasnt so fun - i counted!)... the main cavern shall we call it that we were allowed in was 100m wide and 80m long!!!!! apparently there has been another one found which is 4 times this size can you believe but it is too dangerous to get through to for us so we use our imaginations!
some of the formations...
there are drip formations which are formed guess how... by dripping water down the surface edges (its soooo cryptic isnt it lol) ;o) and there were two main ones we were shown: the 'organ pipes' and the 'weeping willow'. the weeping willow was estimated to be 1.5 million years old!!! was HUGE and just incredible! and some of the stalagmites and tites and poles (joined) we sooooo fat!!!! basically it just had MAJOR wow factor to it!
now these passages... let me elaborate!
we came out sooo dirty it was unbelievable. this was because we spent about an hour and a half on our stomachs or bums or whatever crawling about. we had to leopard crawl at one point... you know like the army do!!!
i'll give you some of the dimensions we had to get through; and when i say these i am NOT exaggerating - this is fact that martin our guide told us!
"devils chamber" and it really was was 7 or so metres long and on a 70 degree slope and was 40cm high!!!!! also all of these passages were wet!!!
"post box" this involved leopard crawling big time as the exit was 27cm high!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it was about 10 metres long
i cant remember all the others but they were similar and just how i got through without cutting off my boobs and arse i will never know! i vame out wet and grubby but alive and exhilerated!
anyway i'm gonna go get some lunch and if anything more exiting happens i'll update you further
lots of love
m
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