So today I am near Nelson at the top of Takaka Hill, and the rocks around me are marble which
is a type of hardened limestone. And today is 'adventure geology day'
and I've got a harness and I've got a helmet. So we're going to go down a big hole. And here is my
guide who I will introduce in a little while. We're getting set
to have some sort of adventure and explore down below so let's see how that goes.
That's a long way down! 180 meters deep.
Okay that's um encouraging! I guess it'll be a while
but I'll see you at the bottom. You shall.
So getting deeper down. There's some people exploring a side passage. Hi there!
Now i'm sliding down quite gently. I am nearly...
Right I'm down on the ground.
Okay the rope's free! I've got no idea how this
shaft has formed. There must have been either a huge collapse of a cavern roof, or a big river
washed into it. And when I was coming down I could see that the walls were quite smooth so
I suspect there was a river washing down and maybe partly bits then collapsed later. Now it's obvious
there's no big river up there so it must have been abandoned and maybe the water's got diverted
in another route, and gone underground somewhere else. And i think that's probably what happened.
Down where we are right now is a kind of rubble slope - i'll just show you what that looks like.
It's just a slope of rubble - you might be able to see the rope going up there in the distance - and
the rubble is just like broken rocks that must have fallen down into here and it goes down,
down into the big dark hole over there.
So we're at the bottom now and we're just going to put some of our
climbing gear in the bag - I'll keep that one. So most of it's not needed.
And Neill thanks so much for getting me down here safe and sound! I'm very happy
to be on my feet on the solid earth. It's pretty terrifying actually even though I've been in high
rocky places. Neill has suffered me as a teacher at school and now he's in the lead teaching me
how to go through a cave safely, So I'm delighted to be with Neill.
He's been down here many times and that's a very reassuring. So I have a little bit of a sense of
mystery because I don't really know what we're in for, but Neill does so I'm in your capable hands.
So we're going to follow the scree slope down. It leads to an underground
cave system that eventually meets a streamway which comes from who knows where?
So we are now in a really big cavern. It looks like we're near the bottom - is that right?
Uh a little way to go. A little way to go? Okay.
So I can hear the sound of water in the distance.
And this at the moment is fairly rubbly underfoot but it's very easy travel.
all good
So we're just following a rope down. Wowee! So we've arrived at the streamway.
So this is a small stream - it's not as big as the original one that created the shaft I''m sure,
but nonetheless this stream is the way forward.
Woo! A lot of the time there's this fantastic little
ledge of limestone that you can walk around and use as a foot ledge to avoid getting too wet.
So amazing flowstone under a waterfall.
So here we've got a rock fall that has collapsed a long time ago and the
calcite is starting to precipitate around it, so it's a very old rockfall.
If you chuck us that bag I can um... Yeah
I can see why I needed that dry bag!
It's quite cold eh
So we're near the end of the cave and right at the end we have this beautiful cavern
Starlight Cavern - sparkly and full of stalagtites, stalagmites with flowstone, cave coral and
straws, all sorts of columns and curtains. It's just magical I kind of almost don't want it to stop!
So i'm going to point the light at Neill for a moment. Yeah Neill I just want to say thank
you so much for bringing me down this cave. Yeah so it's not for the faint-hearted or
inexperienced. There is a couple of tricky spots which have sort of had people um
had people turn back essentially.
So there's light at the end of the cave here.
And there's a pool.
wow suddenly it's warm here
Here we are, and there's a little fantail or two or three or four. What a fantastic mission! So that was
Harwoods Hole. The deepest shaft in New Zealand, the deepest cave shaft. Probably one of the deepest
in the Southern Hemisphere and a spectacular cave system to come through. And now we've come out
into the forest, the New Zealand bush and it's raining. And so finally we're out here at the um
lower entrance and we're in the jungle, and we've got a really big hike of 350 meters up a steep
track to get back to the beginning and retrieve that rope. So I hope you've enjoyed this video
I've certainly had a whale of a time today and I look forward to seeing you in the next one!