Caving in the Philippines – #2 Lobo Cave 12 January 2017

Permits are needed for caves in the Philippines, and a “permit” is also needed from the head of the village that the cave is near. For Lobo cave though, Joni is the only person that goes into this cave anyone that just turned up at the village to do the cave would be turned away, and referred to Joni. The cave shows no evidence of people going through it, no wear marks and no fixed ropes, it makes you feel as though you are actually discovering it yourself.

We had a briefing at the house before setting off, and whilst Joni laid out what we were going to do during the day, we were still taken by surprise (in a nice way), when things like the boat at the end of the day just appeared out of no-where.

We set off from the house by foot, although a tricycle took the heavy packs to the Jeepney stop.

We picked up the Jeepney just down the road from Joni’s and then after about half an hour, stopped by the side of the road and met up with our two porters who carried the heavy packs for the rest of the day.

From the highway we walked up this road that led to the village where the two porters came from. Most of the time the porters are farmers in this area (pineapples, root crops, bananas), but when needed they earn extra money from Joni by either guiding (Filipino groups) or being our porters. They understood English but didn’t like to speak it all that much.

The view from the track on a ridge that we eventually got to.

We dropped off the side of the ridge and down a fairly steep muddy track to the headwaters of a river.

Once we arrived at the river (which was in flood), we walked upstream for a couple of hundred metres.

We then came to a clearing which is where we changed into overalls, and the entrance of the cave.  We were soaking wet by the time we got to the cave, either from sweating (it was very hot), or because it started raining.

One of the first formations that we came to was the “angel’s wings”, this really did look like an angel, most of the formations were stark white, just like this one.

A lot of the formations, like this one, had water running over them (due in part to the heavy rain that they’d had over the last week)

Eventually we came to the “diamond” passage and one of our porters climbed down to the bottom, it was an easy down-climb, but Joni set up a belay for us anyway (he’s very safety conscious)

Jim going down the diamond passage

Once down the bottom, there were heaps more formations and eventually we came to the underground river. There was a waterfall here, and when the water isn’t too high (or swift), you can go past the waterfall upstream, today though, there was too much water so we turned around and went back.

Lovely rim pools

These were under the water (which was high), but ordinarily, they’d sit up like goblets

more rim pools

lovely ceiling formation

Again, water flowing over these formations.

Jim going back up the climb of the “diamond passage”

Whilst we were down the diamond passage, the other porter had set up lunch for us, lots of rice, chicken adobe and dried fish.

After lunch we donned life jackets and climbed up a formation with the use of a handline (that the porter had put in while we were having lunch), you didn’t really need it but someone who wasn’t used to scrambling would have found it handy

The formation at the top of the climb

After the climb, we walked along in the river for a short way, formations all around us.

In one of the pools we found this white crab, there were a lot of these in the pools both on this trip and the next one. The caves seem to have more wildlife in them than caves in Oz

Eventually the river became quite deep and you were forced to swim.

Formation coming almost all the way down to the water in this passage

This formation was amazing, it went quite a way (almost a metre) out over the river/water

More strange formations, and quite a few stalagmites, which weren’t as plentiful as the stalactites.

As you can see this formation was huge

Beautiful shawls

Jim and me in the river, it was actually quite nice just floating with the life vest, not as much work as without one!

Eventually at the end of the river, we climbed up to an exit.  This exit/entry point isn’t used as it’s a long way to get to it.

Back in the river heading back to the lunch spot

Another strange formation

The tree of us (Joni in the middle) at the exit of the cave.

We then walked downstream to where we had entered the creek, continued past that point and headed down the river to where it was navigable. It was hard going over the rocks but easier on the bank than in the river.

There are caves everywhere, most of them unexplored. Here is an exit of an underground river.

The river became much deeper, but still not navigable.

Finally we turned a corner and there was a boat that was just big enough for the five of us plus the boat owner.

We only just fitted in it. This was a big tree that had been hollowed out.

From the boat, the view downstream, all limestone rock either side and some cave openings (unexplored I believe)

After a half hour or so, the river opened up and was quite wide. Here was a “bridge” across it, very rickety looking!

We had driven over the bridge (on the left in the distance) the day before (on the bus), and I’d wondered what these teepee looking structures were. Turned out they were for green lipped mussels to grow on. Where we docked (just near the bridge), there were a few farmers sorting and cooking mussels that they’d harvested that morning.