Expedition into the Rauensteiner cave
Names like "Canossa passage", "Grave", or "Afterlife" let us anticipate that the Rauensteiner cave doesn't suit a peaceful walk on Sunday. Therefore we have rather chosen a Saturday.
The first two hours we are busy looking for a suitable wetsuit and protective clothing receptively. The ones who have snatched a wetsuit also need a fire fighter or army combination for further protection. At the end we all look funny. Far and wide there is no lake in sight, but here we are in wetsuits!
To be fair, it isn't necessarily the normal outfit you wear when exploring a cave. The "Rauhoe", how it is called affectionately, isn't just any cave either. The first hundred meters are partially very narrow and filled with water. You have to lie down backwards in the water, which has a pleasant temperature of 5° Celsius, and slide along the rock face with your nose. Marks indicate whether this venture is possible - six inches of air are indispensable in order to breathe in oxygen.
We are lucky, the water level is very low, but so much the more exhausting is the crawling, when at the bottom a pebble is jammed and your legs don't gain a foothold in the gravel debris. After a few hundred metres the hollows dilate, and for the first time you can change into the upright position amongst all kinds of stalagmites. This section is gorgeous due to the multifarious formations. After a short climbing tour over a crack a slight smell of oil blows into our noses. We come closer to the refinery, where never anything was produced. Above the cave there is an old industrial firm, from where the oil must have seeped through. In the meantime, the magnificent and very big stalagmites and stalactites are a bit sintered again and look very quaint and unexpected.
On our way back we have to crawl again, through new passages, which doesn't change anything. And on the last metres, in the "Canossa passage", finally there is a bit more water. Now the impermeability of the protective clothing is tested, and already after few minutes you can gather from the loud exclamations of "Eeeeeh" that it is rather permeable and lets its wearer forget other little aches and pains for a few seconds. Inside the wetsuit you get wet anyway, but you know that right from the beginning.
The last metres are brilliant. A small drain seems to be plugged and thus a smooth mud layer, which is 10 cm thick, has formed. You cannot slide better anywhere else, except when you are about to lose your trousers!
