With all of the lidar data from New Zealand karst areas burning a hole in my brain, I was desperate to get in at least a couple days of looking for new caves while in New Zealand. I was not able to recruit anyone else to join me and so needed to pick an area likely to have low risk caves (walk-in caves as opposed to cold, wet or lots of vertical ropework). In looking through these different areas I became particularly interested in the Moonsilver karst area between the Flora Saddle and Asbestos Cottage trailheads. This would require several hours walk to get to and I had the impression the karst field was unexplored other than Moonsilver Cave which sits quite close (really underneath) the track through the area. The lidar revealed some enticing drainages starting blindly at cliffs and other examples of streams sinking into cliffs, which were completely obscured in aerial photos but clear as day in the vegetation-removing lidar. Weighing my options, I eventually decided to go for an overnight hike in via the Asbestos Cottage trailhead along Cobb Reservior Rd. A pleasant wide track carried me up high above the Takaka River. I soon reached the asbestos mining area with its green ultramafic rocks, stunted vegetation, and assorted mining relicts. Soon after I reached Asbestos Cottage which was largely as I had remembered it. The cottage was built in 1897 by miners and later this remote hut was lived in by reclusive couple for 40 years in a real-life story fit for a Hollywood period piece drama. I had stayed a night here once well over a decade. This time I stopped for a snack before continuing on to new terrain.
Past the cottage I got some good views across the serpentine to some of the flat limestone tablelands on the horizon and the surprisingly colorful beech forest on the opposing hillsides. The track then descended steeply to the Takaka River where I crossed the bridge over a deep pool and began my ascent up to the limestone.
Most on the way up the hill I veered off the track to follow a curious creek upward. The creek emerged at a small resurgence, which I pushed a little ways before deciding it was wetter and smaller than I had my sights set on this trip. Nearby I sniffed out a much more promising resurgence entrance, this one with comfortable walking passage heading into the hillside and a bizarrely unique umbrella shaped pillar on bedrock at its entrance. Just in the entrance I spotted a hanging piece of flagging and further in some bones placed on ledges and so clearly this cave was known. I followed the cave in as far as a prominent skylight entrance, and then searching around the karst above the cave I was able to find the entrance from above, and thus to sketch in the approximate position of the cave without surveying it.
I continued on exploring the karst in this first region, notably enjoying the remarkably open bush and interesting rillen-karren bedrock outcrops, but finding few other promising karst features. It was becoming clear the limestone here was quite thin overall with few entrances into its single layer of cave development, largely at the contact between the limestone and underlying schist. I crossed the track and explored along the exposed edge of the limestone finding a few small features. Late in the day I reached the first of several prominent sinking streams. Here a stream submerged into a towering entrance at the most promising cave yet. I put on my helmet, packed my spare headlamps, and headed down the stream. Like all others I would find this stream was right on the contact with the underlying schist and the limestone above. Eventually I got to a deep pool and stripped down to my boxers to wade across and continue exploration. A side stream joined with at least another 100m of passage but continuing down the main stream I soon got to two very well decorated formation rooms above the stream level. I awkwardly scooted further down the low pancake shaped passage to another wet constriction where I turned around. In all I probably explored about 350m of cave passage in what I suspect to be a larger system, convincingly virgin. With the wet parts and complexity of side passages I decided this would probably be too much of a survey project to take on myself and decided to prioritize more exploration. Under light drizzle I settled for a nice flat camping spot between the entrance and a dark mysterious eel pond on the creek, excited to explore a few more stream sinks the following day.
In the morning I packed up and continued my way along the edge of the limestone. I found several more stream sink caves, each another 100-200m in length and seemingly unexplored. I suspect they all must ultimately drain into the main part of Moonsilver Cave. A few of these passages had some quite nice formations including weird bent stalactites and some nice cave bacon. I saw plenty of cave wetas as well.
After a half-day of exploring my time was running out. I was kind of dreading the circuitous 16km/10mi trail back to my car with its ups and downs and so decided to attempt a direct route back that the lidar seemed to think was a reasonable idea. This would involve 0.8 mile hiking the mixed manuka forest to the edge of the plateau (worse travel than the limestone's beech forest), then a 0.5 mile long/500 m vertical descent down a steep ridge to the Takaka River, then a steep 100 m climb up to the benched trail, only 3km length total. Happily this was a good idea and though rough and sweaty at times, I was back to the car in under 2 hours. After releasing my emergency call-out and grabbing a tasty bite to eat in Takaka, I drove the long winding road around Whanganui Inlet (low tide) on to Paturau. I had only ever visited this coast before on one of three Easter caver family weekends, so I should have expected the nostalgia and mood to be quite different. Despite finding about 1.5 km of new cave in the last 24hrs I felt pretty alone driving out to this isolated roadend and contemplated seeing if I could get my ticket changed to return home earlier. Against this backdrop of mixed feelings the sunset was top notch and I found a good enough spot to sleep in my car near the Anatori River.
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| Sunset on the Paturau coast |
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