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Pond Cave in Tapolca
The Tapolca basin, nestling among the ridges of hills of the Balaton highlands, is surrounded by the scenic beauties of basalt columns and onetime volcanic mountains. Anciently the larger water of the Lake Balaton would ripple above the basin and the mountains formed islands in the large water surface. Nowadays these islands overlook the ”sea” of arable lands, from which the most famous one is the Szent-György hill with a height of 413 m.
If we are eager to get a picture of the town wreathed with hills in the vicinity of Balaton, gently sloping vineyards and basalt and bauxite mines, then it is a must to cost a glance at the dynamically developing town of Tapolca.
From the city centre via Lajos Kossuth Street visitors get to Sándor Kisfaludy Street that leads to the extremely interesting place of interest in Tapolca: the Pond Cave.
Most caverns attract visitors with their splendid dropstones and usually the recognition of caverns as tourist attraction is mainly due to these formations. But not only the dropstones are interesting.
The pond Cave in Tapolca was first discovered in 1902. Pál Tóth baker buckled down to build his house and started to dig a well with Ferenc Németh bricklayer. They started the job in January 1902 going downwards at first with pickaxe, but later managed to proceed in the rock with explosions only. First they found a small cave, but after continuing the digging one of the nook fell in and gave way to a yawning creep in the dark.
Ferenc Németh crept in the dark, mysterious cavity and beyond the scree he found a large humid cave. He got lamps and made his way further into the cavern with his colleagues. They found a series of large subterraneous caves and reached the shore of a pond. They crossed the pond in a lobe and discovered a few other ponds, separated with scree from one another.
On returning to the surface they told what they had seen. Gusztáv Rédli, director of the onetime civilian school, and others descended in the well and crept in the discovered cavity, then reported the case to Lajos Lóczy, leader of Balaton-researching of that time, and the scientific exploration of the cavern began.
They ascertained the peculiarity of the cave, namely that the temperature of water in the inner ponds is much higher than the usual temperature of water in the neighbouring wells, as well as the air temperature is also higher than the average cellar temperature.
The fame of the new-discovered natural rarity soon spread and attracted more and more visitors. Visitors, however, found difficulties in descending the well. It made some enthusiastic residents found a so-called ”Cave Company” and built the present passage leading down. The plans were made and the works were managed by Aladár Keszler. After the completion of the passage with 74 stairs down, the cave was opened to the public. World War I. set back the further exploration of the cave, and was resumed in 1924. The passage leading down was renovated and illuminated the cavities in 1928 with electric lamps. In Hungary it was the first cave with electric illumination also used by tourists.
In 1938 the scree piles, that separated the cavities, were removed and a 25 metres long artificial corridor allowed the public a free access to the areas by boat and at the end of the trip they could return to the initial point.
Considering the cave of great natural significance the National Council of Natural Protection declared the cave protected. The Veszprém County Tourist Office provided for its operation until 1989.
By 1987 the technical conditions in the cave had deteriorated to such extent, that the Tourist Office closed down the cave.
The Ministry of Environmental Protection and Water Management entered a contract for utilisation with Bakony Bauxite Mining for a period of 15 years in order to utilise the cave for tourist purposes. Since 1990 the fully renovated cave has been opened to the public.
Visitors have an access to the pond cave through a passage from the waiting-room. The artificial passage with 74 stairs leads down in a cavern named after the explorer Lajos Lóczy.
The pleasant, warm and humid air in the caverns is uncommon, which has a beneficial effect on people suffering from asthmatic and respiratory diseases. This issue has raised the attention of Hungarian specialists in accordance with scientific investigations performed in certain caverns abroad, which proved the good biological influence of air free from dust and bacteria.
A light on the right side at the front of the cavern illuminates the cavity which used to be a well and in which the explorers first descended.
On the walls and ceiling of the 20 metres long and 6-8 metres high cavern you can see the small semispherical cavities that were dissolved by the karst water onetime filled the cave.
Through an opening we can get into a 50 metres long corridor with some cavities whose walls are also traces of water dissolution. According to a marble tablet on the wall the largest cavern, whose ceiling you can also see ÜSTÖK / CAULDRONS??, is named after János Batsányi.
Let us return to the large cavern from the corridor and you find a n entrancing sight in the northern end. This is the first section of the boat-trip. Now we can go for an exciting trip by boat among the zigzag cliffs and rock-cavities.
At the entrance of one of the wide sections on your right or left you can see a dark cavity down in the water at the depth of 4-5 metres, which attracts visitors’ attention with its glistening water surface.
We have entered a beautiful part of the cavern; from the cavities on the right our divers and cavers explore new openings.
The final section of our boat-trip is a 25 metres long artificial corridor and we shall be careful / mind your head, please! / due to the low ceiling, and we are back at the initial point.
The Pond Cave has been formed in the horizontally stratified Sarmatian limestone, on which the town of Tapolca is built. At the end of the Tertiary era the area between Vienna-basin and Lake Aral was covered by promiscuous sea water. The coarse limestone, containing plenty of fossils, was settled in this sea; this type of limestone is also called cerithium-limestone after the dominant ancient snail.
Due to earth movements in the final period of Tertiary era there were gigantic cracks and gaps formed, and the deepest ones let the glowing lava burst onto the surface. It broke through the young sand stone and spread in the area. The basalt ”pies” slowly set firm and prevented the loose formations underneath from damages, which were carried away by wind and storm water elsewhere. That is how the basalt hills - also called as ”witness hills” - were formed in the vicinity of the lake Balaton
In connection to earth movements there were gorges formed in the limestone table, in which subterraneous water flows made their way and formed the Pond Cave in Tapolca partly by chemical solution (corrosion), partly by their physical abrasion power (erosion).
This cave-formation became more intensive when subterraneous water flows were diverted to this area in the glacial period and the Mill Lake spring burst into the surface from the Sarmatian limestone in Tapolca. The water that appear in several seepages join and flow into Tapolca creek. The watercourse was widened in the upper reach by damming up in the thirties. It formed the Mill Lake and allowed visitors to take a trip in the Pond Cave by boat.
The exploration of the cavern system is not finished yet. The conscious and scientific investigation as well as mapping is done by PLECATUS and István Plózer Skin-diver Caver Team.
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