Elephant's Eye Cave

This guide to Elephant's Eye Cave above Cape Town follows the sound that draws hikers up the last steep pull from Silvermine reservoir: water dripping steadily off the cave's sandstone roof. It swings back to the 1680s, when Dutch East India Company prospectors dug shafts into these slopes convinced the mountain held silver ore, a hunt that left its name on the whole reserve. Listen for that drip as you climb, and pause at the cave mouth for the view over the Cape Flats toward False Bay.