Jamaican Caving Notes

Kinloss Shelter

May 21, 2005 - 13:45-14:45 EST

District: Kinloss

Parish: Trelawny

WGS84 L/L: 18 24 03.0; 77 34 05.4

JAD69: 189853 E, 194169 N     

JAD2001: 689964 E, 694458 N

Altitude: 200m WGS84

Accuracy: +/- 5m horizontal; +/- 15m vertical

Type: Shelter cave

Accessibility: Walk-in

Depth: 0m

Length: 7m

Explorers: GSD, JCC

Survey: None

JU Ref: Text - pg 222; Map - none

Entrance size: 15m W x 4m H

Entrance aspect: 25 deg true

Vegetation in general locale: Farm

Vegetation at entrance: Farm

Rock type: White limestone

Bedding: Poor

Jointing: Poor

Speleothems: Stals, flowstone

Palaeo resources: None seen

Archaeo resources: None seen

Hydrology: Dry

Siltation: N/A

Sink: N/A

Rising: N/A

Stream passage with surface activity: N/A

Stream passage without surface activity: N/A

Dark zone: 0%.

Climate: Hot, dry.

Bats: <500

Bat guano: Little

Guano mining: None

Guano condition: Dry/compact

Eleutherodactylus cundalli: None

Neoditomyia farri: None

Amblypygids: None

Periplaneta americana: None

Cave crickets: None

Sesarma: None

Other species: None. This site has no true dark-zone. It is an occasional roost for Artibeus.

Visitation: Occasional - local.

Speleothem damage: None

Graffiti: Some

Garbage: Some

Ownership: Private

Protection: None

Vulnerability: Low. This shelter cave has no dark-zone. The bat-roost is minor and appears to be limited to occasional Artibeus.

This was the last cave visited as part of the Parks in Peril Project. The day had started in Troy, and then we had located Iron Maiden, at last, in Rock Spring, and then Campbells Cave after driving down the Barbecue Bottom road, and then finally, to finish things off, a simple little shelter cave not far from Windsor, in Kinloss.

This site is found about 25 metres up a hill on the south side of the road from Kinloss to Duanvale. It can be seen from the road if one looks carefully. If using a GPS, drive along the road, with the receiver navigating to the supplied WGS84 position, and when it shows you 30-40 metres away, with the distance increasing, stop the car and look up the hill to the south.

A scramble through brush up the hill will get you to a wide, overhanging entrance with stalactites. The cave is not large, and is all in the twilight zone.

Artibeus are using the darker recesses occasionally, but there are no trogs. The interior of the cave is at outside ambient temperature and humidity.

Some garbage is lying around, and we can speculate that it is an occasional hangout for little bashments by local youths.

The site is not recorded as having had palaeo investigations, but it would seem to offer potential for this. It has been high and dry for a very long time, and excavations might prove rewarding with regard to Quaternary vertebrates.

While at the road, by the car, we had two interesting encounters:

First, an older gentleman on a motorcycle stopped to see what was up (he knew there was a cave in the hill above us), and we soon realized that we knew each other. He was, in fact, the gentleman who had been with us during our search for Ramgoat Cave, about 7 years before. I had always wanted his name - the session was before my keeping of notes for every outing, and I hadn't written it down at the time. His name is Herman Hyatt, and the Ramgoat Cave notes that I wrote from memory years later have been amended accordingly.

Second, a Police Landrover came by, and stopped to see what was up. We told the officer in charge about the PiP Project, and our part working on the caves under contract, and he was very interested in it all. He knew of several other caves, every one of which we'd been to in the past, and we chatted away for a good while. Finally, we all had to carry on with our tasks for the day - for the Police, back to their patrol; for Herman, carrying something somewhere in a large box on his motorcycle; and for the JCO, onwards to Miss Lilly's and some greatly deserved Red Stripe to celebrate the end of the TNC-J fieldwork.