Historic discovery by NZ cavers

BY ANDREW BOARD

The discovery of the country's first kilometre-deep cave, south of Nelson, has been hailed as the biggest piece of news in the history of New Zealand caving.

The team of three cavers has made the connection between two known caves in the Ellis Basin, on Mt Arthur. Its discovery gives New Zealand its first recorded cave deeper than 1000 metres and could rocket it into the top 10 of deepest caves in the world, said expedition leader Kieran McKay, of Waitomo.

"It's a huge discovery, the biggest piece of news in the New Zealand caving scene, ever. It has sparked a lot of interest internationally as well, cavers that had dismissed New Zealand for deep caves are already talking about coming out here," he said.

The gruelling journey to link up several caves in the area ended on the last day of the season for the cavers and using the last few metres of their one kilometre worth of rope.

While the trio endured beaten bodies, squeezing through tiny holes for up to 30 metres at a time and temperatures as low as two degrees Celsius during the 10-day mission, Mr McKay said it had been generations of cavers who laid the foundation that had led to the momentous occasion.

"We finished the project but it was started in the 1960s by cavers who first explored the area and the groundwork that they laid has really helped us. Hundreds of cavers and thousands of hours have been involved in this discovery," he said.

Nelson Speleological Group president Andrew Smith said the connection was certainly a milestone for caving in the region.

"As cavers we don't like to get too excited until we see it on paper and the survey is yet to be done. But we are really excited, it puts it up there as far as deep caves, certainly a big discovery. Cavers have been trying to get to that kilometre milestone for some time and he's got it so we are happy about that."

The group of three Sparc-funded cavers, including Aaron Gillespie, of Geraldine, and Troy Watson, of Waitomo, experienced the highlight of their caving careers, but not as they expected heading into the day, said Mr McKay.

"We looked at our maps and were pretty excited to start with because the two caves were heading straight for each other and then one went straight across the top of the other and we thought `hold on a minute, they are meant to connect'.

"We got quite down about it and despondent because it was quite a hard cave and every time we went in and out of it we felt as if we had been really beaten up, it was quite hard work," he said.

Then, while sitting in a huge chamber they decided to make one last effort to squeeze through a hole using their last bit of rope.

"It was a miserable tight crack and we thought 'here we go, last bit of rope then we'll have to go home.' But we went for a bit of a climb and jumped down to the floor and then realised I was looking at another cave in the system and suddenly thought 'I know where I am'.

"It was amazing going from being so down to then thinking, we'd done it, we'd got our 1000m cave," Mr McKay said.

The system went from 775m to 1026m with the discovery and is now one of the top 80 deepest caves in the world but with a bit more work it should get into the top 10 next summer, hopes Mr McKay.

The discovery was especially rewarding for Mr Watson, whose father was one of the original cavers to explore the system in the 1960s.

The system is 33.4km long – making it the second longest cave in New Zealand after the Bulmer Cavern on Mt Owen, which is 66km – and comes after extensive work was completed during a nine-person expedition to the area in late January, Mr McKay said.

- © Fairfax NZ News