Martinborough Caving Oct 29

On Friday I found myself up in Wellington to present some of my research at a workshop. It had been a hectic week so I had to prepare and pack at the last minute at the expense of sleep. Friday night we went to the city to see a friend of Justin's off. I woke up at 7:30am on Saturday, ate a quick breakfast, threw gear and myself into the car, and off we drove for an hour and a half to Martinborough, Justin's favorite local caving (and wine) area. I drifted in and out of sleep the whole way, just alert enough to make the occasional comment.

Then several dirt country roads brought us to our car park. We packed packs and started our hour hike along a four-wheel drive track through farmland. Everything was thoroughly muddy from the previous day's rain. Eventually we reached the limestone karst area. Justin pointed out across the karst and told us that every tree we saw has a hole, most of which have yet to be explored. As a bonus, ones with fences around them were guaranteed to be vertical entrances. We headed towards Plunge Pool Cave, the 500m long 80m deep through-trip Justin pushed and rigged. We suited up at the entrance for a cold and wet cave. My brain had been in disarray for over 48 hours and I managed to leave my overalls and helmet in Dunedin. At least I had lights and vertical gear and I knew we were planning on a fast trip. The stream was flowing at 3 times the normal flow and we knew there were several constrictions we would have to pass. We had one more look at the weather and decided to go for it.

     Every tree has a hole

    Suiting up at the Plunge Pool Cave submergence

The first 7m abseil was a mere 5m into the cave, a beautiful overhanging waterfall that plunged into a deep pool with plenty of nice formations nearby. When I hit the bottom of the waterfall I hyperventilated a breath from the jolt of the cold water- it was going to be a cold trip. It became quickly obvious I was not going to be getting good photos of this cave as our wet clothes and bodies emitted a atmospheric fog that would cloud any flash photo. Not to mention stopping would be too cold. We followed the stream which was the only option. I quickly became aware of the low nature of this cave and worried a bit about the cave flooding. We powered on through one or two more obstacles which felt like commitment enough to go through the bottom of the cave.

At intervals we had to wade through half meter high drifts of foam. In several places there was only enough airspace to pass through the water up to our necks. There were several drops and handlines to negotiate. Near the halfway mark the cave widened slightly to house a nice passage with glowworms. This quickly reverted back to a low and steeply descending streamway. The cave steadily went on. Eventually we reached a breakdown area near the entrance. I remember hoping that it was drier outside than it had been in the cave. We exited the resurgence into lush and humid rainforest. A classic through trip! Now to escape the bush.

Next we ambled our way up the hill through thick supplejack vines. Eventually we found the break in the bluff and returned to the top entrance of the cave to have lunch and dry out in the sun. We then decided to walk along the river below to search for resurgences. On the way we checked out the impressive lower entrance to Rose's Cave. We traversed the short, but scenic, limestone gorge spotting three resurgence creeks. The largest creek did not yet correspond to a cave so who knows what there is still to be found at this tiny but dense karst field.

On the walk back to the car Justin spotted a cut log he wished to re-purpose as a firewood chopping block. He was determined to carry the waterlogged 20kg+ section the 2km+ to the car. At intervals the log was rolled down the four-wheel drive track to save his back and arms. The log made it to the car despite much pain and suffering.

 

Thanks to Justin and Rose.

Guillotine Cave Oct 24

With an uncertain weather forecast and a mounting pile of things to do, I decided to cut my vacation short and take a quick trip to Guillotine Cave (also known as Hunters Cave) before my 8hr drive back to Dunedin. The cave is the southernmost known cave in the Arthur Marble. Only 3km away is the Alpine Fault which truncates the marble band, never to be seen again.

We parked on the side of the road and began climbing up the steep paddocked hillside to the bush sheltering the cave. As we gained elevation, the paddock provided panoramic views of the Maruia River valley. We climbed above a marble band and walked through bush decidedly un-karst-like. The GPS said we were close but there were no obvious karst features of any kind. Then we heard a small waterfall a short distance away so started off in that direction. Suddenly out of the bush appeared a wide 20m deep sinkhole in front of us. To the side of it was a huge gaping entrance lit with sun rays. Large boulders over 10m high jam the entrance requiring a rope to enter the cave. Despite being less than 200m long, the entrance evokes a great cave system. A prominent slab of marble pointed upward while another enormous slab was wedged in the roof above- the naming of the cave was obvious. We were here.

After some debate over how to rig the entrance pitch (we could see three good options), we decided on a less traditional but easier to rig option, which coincidentally was the most photogenic option. A 2-stage 18m abseil brought us into the cave. Sunlight bounced off the ceiling to light the entrance chamber. We stripped off our vertical gear and climbed down into the steeply descending cave. The cave is one tall rift passage half full of large breakdown blocks with a small stream passage overprinting the base of it. Periodically it is possible to climb up into nice formation chambers, but the way on is typically staying low in the stream. Who knows what passages branch off from the top of this cave! One of the formation rooms had bizarre lichen-like growths on the calcite. I have never seen anything like them before.

    Biological or mineralogical?

The stream cut through beautiful dark blue-banded marble with great boudinage textures and cross-cutting veins in places. The cave was surprisingly well-decorated. We continued on through several low duck-walk, hands-and-knees and belly crawls to a convincing sump and then returned the way we came. The cave made for an enjoyable trip. Undoubtedly there must be more cave in the area!

Thanks to Lara.

Profanity Cave Oct 23

After the long drive to the NZSS annual general meeting in Murchison and sitting in a council meeting all day Saturday, I was all to keen to get in a cave. Profanity has an interesting history and a reputation to flood spectacularly. In 1980 three cavers became trapped in the cave for three days waiting for flood waters to drop as police were unsure how to respond and cavers begged to be able to act. Eventually the cavers located an entrance which had collapsed in the 1968 Inangahua earthquake and managed to dig their way in to rescue the cavers. The result of this informal rescue was the birth of Cave Search and Rescue in New Zealand.

With good directions we managed to find this entrance through which the rescue took place, now known as the Salvation entrance. Most of us donned wetsuits and found our way down the precarious breakdown and into the cave. We followed the distant roar to arrive at the cave's stream. Heading upstream we shortly found ourselves at an overhanging 4m waterfall, which looked rather difficult to climb, not to mention wet!

Consulting the map we realized the best way to bypass the waterfall was to go through The Maze, a network of joint-controlled passages. We followed our noses and eventually found our way back to the main streamway. Before long we reached The Lake, a 70m long wade/swim. Stashed nearby were some old tire tubes some of us could use. A handline was rigged across the pool so that the tubers only needed to pull themselves along as they floated beneath the glowworms. The Lake was the start of a large 600m long passage that was often 10m wide, clearly not formed by the modern stream, but by some ancient river. We clambered up a large rockpile and found a great rock at the edge of a chamber to have a lunch break and a brew.




    The end of The Lake


    The lunch rock

After we continued along this most pleasant (though a bit slippery) passage to its offending rockfall at the end. The cave continues for quite some distance down a small side passage, but this enormous passage is never encountered again. There is probably about a kilometer more of this large passage beyond the rockfall, but we may never know or see it. We thought this a good place to turn around and head back downstream. Gavin and I opted to climb down the 4m waterfall which was a sporty good time. Once reunited with the others, we all followed the stream down.


    In the large passage

The passage dimensions became smaller with several crawls on our hands and knees. We passed a couple squeezes through rifts and downclimbed a couple waterfalls. Once down the final waterfall, I could immediately see down the straight tunnel-like passage with silver daylight reflecting in the stream. I could certainly see why this was called the Drain Entrance and I could see how this cave would flood spectacularly. The modest resurgence opens out into a pleasant grotto with ferns and moss. A mere 50m walk brought us back to the state highway!


    Satisfied cavers exiting The Drain

Profanity is nice. I found a couple good leads including one that will probably connect to Damnation Cave so hopefully I will find myself in the area during a prolonged drought!