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.
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.
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