11/08/2025
ECHO CAVES, on the farm Klipfonteingrot, near Ohrigstad on the border of Limpopo and Mpumalanga, South Africa 🦇 (some 92 km north of Sudwala Caves)
Adrian and I were doing some sightseeing along the Panorama route and saw Echo Caves on the map. We are fascinated by caves and decided to go and have a look. The location is off the beaten track and we were the only people there. Everything was neat but lonely. We started walking through the gardens and there was no-one around until we bumped into a gentleman, who also turned out to be the guide. He directed us to a dusty reception area where we paid R85 each for the short tour of the caves. The caves are beautiful, mystical and lonely. On exiting the caves our guide became a little pushy on additional tipping and then mentioned the murder of the previous owner! We were quite glad to get back to our car and on doing some googling on the caves we discovered that this was indeed the case!
🦇
In the nineteenth century the Pedi lived in the Samson Chamber at Echo Caves. They used the hollow stalactites as a warning system to warn their people of attacks by neighbouring Swazi tribes. Hence the name Echo Caves.
In 1923, the caves were rediscovered by the owner of the farm, who was looking for missing cattle. The caves were opened in 1959 as a tourist attraction. In the 1980s, more sealed caverns were discovered, and entrances created both into the existing caves and out to the hillside.
The brutal murder of the owner-operator of the caves in 2023, in which she and another resident were tortured and then set alight while still alive, unfortunately casts a long shadow over the caves.
