Once upon a time,(earlier this year), in a land far, far away (New Zealand.), lived a tribe of troglodytes. And they toiled and toiled in their underground caverns, mapping and measuring, till it was all put on CD-ROM……….
This Is just one of the exciting developments over here in the caving world. If anyone wants a copy, let me know.
Another development this year was the chance discovery of a new caving area near the West coast of the North Island. The initial trip found 15 km of new passage, all big walking stuff. I was invited on the 2nd trip... But couldn’t go ‘cos I was working! My partners, Chris & Kris went, though, and got another 4 km in the bag.
Luckily, it was extremely muddy and unpleasant passageway, or I’d have been chewing the carpet with envy! Oh, don’t tell anyone ‘cos its all a big secret still!
My own personal contribution to cave exploration is centred on Turks Cap, a 1500m peak close to Mt.Owen in the N.W. Nelson Mt.s at the North end of the South Island.
This area was visited by cavers 20 years ago, and never revisited (can you imagine that happening in Yorkshire?)
In February, a group of cavers, including me, Chris Pugsley, Kris Ericksen, Bruce Mutton, John Atkinson, Hazel and Fred Karl (who’d been on the original expedition) set off up Nuggetty Gorge (between Turks Cap and Mt. Owen), laden with caving and camping gear.
The trip was a nightmare of deep river fording, climbing wet, slimy rock surfaces, and hacking through dense vegetation to reach Dogface Flat, our campsite. On the positive side, it was a beautiful gorge, and lovely weather.
However, torrential rain set in, and most of the party spent the next 36 hours in a horizontal position in their tents. Those that did get up did no more caving than the entrance chamber of Turks Torrent, a resurgence cave near the campsite, found on the last expedition.
We escaped over the flank of Mt. Owen the next day - nobody could face the gorge trip again! The alternative was a 2000ft climb through the bush to rejoin the main hiking trails on Mt. Owen.
Months later, I’m still reminded of the gorge trip whenever I look at my left foot - I left my big toenail in my walking boot!
6 weeks later, Chris and I headed across the Cook Strait once more, pillion on a 250cc motorbike, and headed for the (rain soaked) mountains. This time we took a different route - a well used track up Mt. Owen to Granity Pass hut, where we stayed the night.
I discovered that Gore-tex doesn’t work in New Zealand weather - I was totally drenched! The next day was a cross - country to a hut in the valley between Mt. Owen and Turks Cap. The weather had improved to merely overcast, and I’d dried out by the time we stopped for lunch at the hut.
After lunch, we headed up a track towards the mountain. At the bush line, a huge hole swallowed a sizeable creek next to the track. Too obvious by far, so we left it alone. It turned out to be "Chunder Din", descended 20 years ago to a sump 300ft down, but not revisited since. Probably plenty of scope for new leads in future!
From there, we tried to ascend the peak of Turks Cap, but got bluffed near the top. We did get a great view below us, though. An obvious feature was a whopping great hole on the opposite side of the gorge, spewing out a darn great river. No time to explore that one! (We subsequently heard that it had twice been seen from a helicopter but had never been visited……Maybe next summer!)
We also noticed what appeared to be a blind valley just below us.Mmm... hopeful. So down we went, past herds of truffla trees (See the Dr. Seuss books to get an idea of what they look like!) into a valley, to a wee streamlet that ended in a cliff wall, and, Lo! a Big Hole.
Dripping with excitement, Chris and I whisked down a moderate size streamway to a Big Drop, with the streamway bouncing down a series of waterfalls. Enthusiasm waned, as I didn’t want to get wet (anyway, we were short of time before dark). With the hope that this could be the upstream entrance of the resurgence cave Turks Torrent, I named it "Turks Trickle".
Before leaving, though, I walked a little way further down the (now dry) valley, and found another promising entrance, almost certainly going into the same system.
Sometime later……
Now we had a whole afternoon to find a major new cave system!
For once, the weather gods smiled on our venture. Saturday started sunny and frosty, but soon warmed to shirts-off sunbathing by lunchtime (Hard to imagine doing that in Yorkshire in midwinter!)
This time, 5 of us set out, heavily laden with caving gear (25kg packs each), up Mt.Owen. The party consisted of Chris Pugsley and I, Jon Terry, a local caver, and 2 Russian girlies, Natasha (who was caving) and Jana (who wasn’t).
The walk up to Branch Creek hut was as bad as ever - 9hours of walking, with a climb of 2 S.I. units (2 Standard Ingleborough units - One S.I. unit being the vertical distance between Inglesport Cafe and the summit - approx. 600m).
The next day was another S.I.unit to Turks Trickle. With great excitement, we all kited up in wet suits (except Jana, who set out to walk back to the hut). Then we made our 1st discovery: the cave had hardly any water flowing down it – the wet pitch we saw last time was now a dry freeclimbl Worse to come, we didn’t need wetsuits or SRT gear at all! It started promisingly, the streambed leading into a moderately large and pretty chamber (by Yorkshire standards), before percolating through the floor and leaving the cave to end in a silt choked bit. Still, a good find, I thought, till I found boot prints in dry silt in a side passage - undoubtedly left by a prospecting party 30 years ago. Bugger. Well, they hadn’t surveyed it or mentioned it in their expedition report - so Chris and Jon surveyed it anyway.
I, meanwhile, left the cave to check another entrance out (which came to nothing), and found Jana, who’d got lost - she came up against big bluffs - "I didn’t notice a big mountain on the way up" !!!!! I sent her back with clear instructions on how to get back to the hut.
Later, the others emerged, and we headed back, arriving just after dark. No Jana. Oh shit! The possibility of a wrong turn could mean her getting lost in Nuggerty Gorge, with no survival gear, and little hope of quick rescue!
So we put our evening meal on to cook. No point in going hungry.
Jon went out to look a bit later - and found her (big sigh of relief) She’d taken a wrong turn just 100 yards from the hut and lost the track. Well, after that excitement, the walk out was uneventful - the threatening rain held off (luckily 24 hours later was this year’s wettest day, 62 mm of rain here in Wellington!).
Altogether, it was a fun trip, a great walk in stunning scenery, so the little matter of disappointing caving ‘didn’t spoil it too much. And I can still look forward to a spring trip to the big resurgence cave in Nuggerty Gorge. Getting to that will make this trip look like a picnic!
"I’ll be back!"
Andy Maloney
Aka. The Mad Vet
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