Middle Earth Cave - NZ

The Middle Earth cave system is up in the hills of Takaka (NZ), Takaka is worth a google if you have never heard of it before it could be the economic hub of NZ of the 'Kiwi Green' aka Wacky tobaccy (Marijuana) if exporting was legalize in New Zealand. The cave system is named after the Lord of the Rings, well so I'm told, but if you're a kiwi, you tend to not to believe your other kiwi mates about how certain things are named, as its often just an educated guess, but this one sounds about right for believing.

This area has a good number of caves in a small area. This system has some great features and there is plenty to see and a lot of further exploration to be done. I think this system will be far from being fully explored. I decided to bring my poor camera, it gets a fair bit of hammering in caving, it is a Sony A6000, it's a great camera, I just wish it was weather sealed :-(  I like to use of Cannon FD lenses, as you can pick them up for $100 and if you have an incident in the cave you've only damaged a $100 lens and not a $1000 lens and some of these old lenses are 'effing' excellent! just minus the autofocus.

We always start our trip with a stop to the Barrel Inn Cafe before going up the hill, coffee is a must! There is only 2 rules in caving.......

• have lots of coffee beforehand and
• get home safely!

Even when you like to have sugar.......resistance is futile!!....was that something the General said in Hogans Heros??.....if you don't get the reference, oh find a gen baby boomer or Xenial :-)

There are a few entrances into this cave system, and one of these midget entrances is called the Hobbit Hole, and with myself as a largish sort of caver who in his younger days loved a good Jimmies pie (Origin Roxbourgh, NZ) and a handle of Speight Ale, I have had a few attempts at this gap called the hobbit hole designed for slim caver, I tried 2 years ago when I was 117kgs...it was a no show! (as we say in New Zealand " You Fat B4$T$red") and my last attempt at this gap was 107kg, but now I'm at 103kgs, and I figured I'll give it a whirl at the 99kg mark, and also by not breathing in.

So back to the main entrance pitch for this ex-rugby playing front rower, the main pitch is around a good 40m drop,  its nice abseiling down due to some water flowing down the face over the marble.  About 60 mins in, there is the 'Enviro Pitch' its a 25m climb, with a redirect about 15m up, then about at the 25m mark there is the re-belay.....followed by a hand ascend to the top of the pitch....this is where I wanted my photo of a black and white shot with a bit of light up the caver backside.....but do you think my mates make great models?....if you said 'yes' I've lost so much respect for you and I hate your optimism - NO it was like herding cats getting them to 'act natural' or to look like that were struggling up to the end of the pitch......they really ended up looking like Ernie and Bert after a night of having oysters and red wine...in other words, it just wasn't the pretty!

At the end of the day, I hate to say its nice to enjoy the enving above ground :-)

Happy and SAFE caving everyone!!

The Riwaka - Some not so serious caving

There are many types of cavers, we have the hard core explorers that cave at a Ferrari’s pace, then we have cavers that will go caving from a few times a month to a few times a year at a leisurly pace, then there are some that are hardcore cave photographers that will sit for long period of time slower than a snails pace by sitting in the one spot trying to get that perfectly positioned shot......well this trip, it didn’t matter what type of caver you were, you just had to have a dam good twisted sense of humour.

We decided to do an easy cave, so we could film, take a few photos and get out early, after all, Xmas was only around the corner and so were the beers at Chris’ house. We wanted to create a bit of a mockumentary and take some fun photos in the Riwaka cave and head up to the coffin slot leg of the system. We decided to drop the seriousness of caving and took some $20 onesie Minion suits that Chris Whiting has recently got from his recent trip to the USA into the back end of the Riwaka cave system.

We created a Mockumentary and call it the ‘Not so secret’ cave inspired by Kieran made a funny Youtube clip about the ‘Secret cave’....I some how doubt my video will see the light of day, but it was fun creating it, but I think I better stick to my day job.

It had been a while since it rained in the area, and December was looking like a dry March, the first half of the cave is usually is a bit damp and wet but on this occasion its been dry, including some of the upper lakes in the system, but surprisingly the 2nd half of the cave the water is still strongly dripping from every crack in the ceiling, despite the drought on the surface, Its a relatively easy cave, with a 10 metre abseil down a thin crack, created by a rock fall, but its a bit fiddley coming up, but as Im a bit on the big side, this is not a problem for most, just fiddly.

As we went through the cave we were taking getting changed into the onesies and dong some video clips in front of some rooms with great formations. After about 7 hours inside somewhere that would take most people 3-4 hours, we exited in what felt like a heat wave, it must have been about 30 degrees, it was the usual stares from the tourists on the way to the car park, but it was beer o’clock and the BBQ was calling back in Nelson.