by HEATHERLYN EVANSON

"I'VE GOT AN AMAZING ONE for you this weekend," Stephen Mendes of hikebarbados.com announced over the phone.

And he did not disappoint.

Our trip weekend took us to a parish that boasts the island's gold coast, a 30-minute drive along Highway 2A.

Amidst the ongoing construction of the rapidly developing area, the bustling of the rustic, yet affluent neighbourhoods, nature's work continues unabated. Hundreds of drops of water continue to build and create the wonders that fill this cavern.

The bleating of sheep disturbed from their grassy contemplation announces our arrival.

The grass is knee high - the vehicle tracks in the cartroad ended metres back. A short trek through a gully-like copse led us to one of those doorways.

The reinforced doorway says that while the cave might be a secret to those of today's generation, someone, sometime ago, knew about this gem that lies beneath the earth.

Creamy white stalactites gleam; stalagmites stretch upwards; a drop of water hangs precariously, catches the light streaming through the doorway, before giving in to gravity; quartz like veins in rocks twinkle like earthly constellations.

And all of this a few feet into the cave.

Move over, Harrison's Cave. Here is Barbados' best kept modern-day secret. Welcome to Apes Hill cave, on the border of St James and St Andrew.

The constantly dripping water has reduced the floor to mud. The going over some parts is tough; holes in the ground disappear into darkness.

High overhead, the colours, the movement to the artistically trained eye are vaguely reminiscent of the Michelangelo's masterpiece on the frescoed ceiling of Rome's Sistine chapel.

The words of admonishment from the guide in Harrison's Cave come to mind - do not touch the formations!

"There are no bats," said Mendes, "and because it is not well known, it is very clean.

"And the formations!" he added.

"Because there is a lot of water dripping, there is a lot of drip stone and flow stone formations and it's quite amazing," he said.

Moments later, the team halted in front a pearly white column. Hundreds of years ago that column, like the others, had been a roof-hanging stalactite and a growing stalagmite. But the two had become one.

"The water dropping starts it coming up," Mendes explained. "And the water slowly dropping from the top starts it growing down. So it's almost inevitable that something grows up right underneath where it's growing down, it has to join eventually."

Moving on, stepping over one of those holes in the earth, the team paused to peer into a shaft, too narrow to enter and it appeared to go nowhere.

"Look at all the ropes coming down," said Mendes, pointing out more flow stone formations.

"How long would it take for something like this to be formed?" he was asked.

"Oh, at least 5 000 years. These stalactites and stalagmites are not going to grow more than maybe a quarter-inch or an inch in our lifetime," he explained, as he led the way through an opening in the rock.

Tree roots joined the stone formations as they sought another way deeper into the earth.

Quartz gleamed in rocks as a passage-way meandered to the explorers' right.

On the way out, the team paused to explore a ridge with a dry-river bed like feature. A shelf of rock overhung the feature.

"It goes pretty far down in there," Mendes said as the team stooped before what for us was the end of the trail. "I'm not convinced that you might not be able to follow it."

But that would have meant some wriggling and contortions.

And while Mendes believes the formations in this cave are spectacular enough to rival those in Harrison's Cave, he does not think Apes Hill cave could be developed like that in St Thomas.

"There is a lot of water in this cave and the problem with this is the close confines of it.

"It would be too difficult to bring people in here. It's too narrow and confined and getting worse. We are the biggest enemies. Look, somebody had already broken off a piece," he said.

So for now, Apes Hill cave seems to have escaped the admiring hordes.

* heatherlynevanson@nationnews.com