3 day cave, day 1

Participants: Ollie O’Brien (ABS staff member & up for an adventure) & me Plan: 3 days in Gardner’s Gut system, camping, finding some other exits and staying out of some expected high water. During May I attended a 3 day vertical rope rescue course followed 2 weeks later by a cave SARex (search & rescue exercise). During the exercise I was inspired to push the time I spent underground.

Day 1

3 day Cave trip Gardner’s Gut June 30 – July 2 2018

Participants: Ollie O’Brien (ABS staff member & up for an adventure) & me Plan: 3 days in Gardner’s Gut system, camping, finding some other exits and staying out of some expected high water.

During May I attended a 3 day vertical rope rescue course followed 2 weeks later by a cave SARex (search & rescue exercise). During the exercise I was inspired to push the time I spent underground. I have not managed to do much caving in the Nelson region so have done no multi day stints underground. If involved in a cave rescue it is helpful to know that you can spend days underneath the earth’s surface dragging some poor injured soul out.

Day 1 Glenys was to be away in India and I had planned to be over jet-lag from my return to NZ 5 days previously, so on Saturday Ollie & I headed down to the HTG hut to grab some club gear. The planned entry point was Cleft of the Orcs. Last time I entered here we abseiled off a convenient tree but found the rope a bit short to easily pull down. This time I grabbed a 44m rope to avoid this issue. Cave access is often across private land, this system involves at least 3 parties for access. I managed to contact one of them whose land we would need to walk across, he was most obliging and put me in touch with Dion a local plumber who was keen to discover more of this system. Gardner’s Gut is the longest known system in the North Island (12-14km), there are 2 main levels, an older dry level 8+m above the current stream way which has some beautifully decorated passages. The stream is fed from a number of entrances draining surrounding bush and farmland, all draining out of the system into the Waitomo stream via the exotically named ‘Downstream Entrance’. In heavy rain the system is known to flood and I’ve once had to exit via the dry Zweilholen entrance rather than risk the head deep water lower down.

As our entry point was some distance from the entry I dropped Ollie off on the road nearest the planned entrance, parked the car at the hut and biked the 3km back on a set of wheels left lying around. The 2 gears worked well and got me there in no time. I have been meaning to find another closer entrance so rather than head to the further away Cleft of the Orcs, we tried to find Helms Deep entrance. I have spent many hours searching for elusive cave entrances in bush so was prepared to move on fairly quickly, but as luck would have it we found a likely looking gulley and could hear water flowing so down we went. Definitely a cave, and the details on the map confirmed we were in the correct place.

A couple of 2m down climbs past a 10m aven (shaft) with a waterfall entering at the top and into the narrow winding passage which carried on for some time with a good number of koura swimming in pools, one of which Ollie captured for later.

We both had good sized packs with overnight gear, food & kit, Ollie being the youngest had the rope, making progress frustrating in the narrow & sometimes low passage. There were a few side passages and which were nicely decorated and worth crawling into.

We eventually hit the main passage, downstream being the intended direction of travel, but we had time to head up towards Cleft of the Orcs for a look, turning around before we got to the crawl. There was one small side passage we thought we might look up on the way, but the wet squeeze put us off. The passage eventually started to get higher which was nice for the back and the stony base gave way to a section of deeper pools with increased gradient and therefore noise. Wild life gets in via the various tomos, we found this guy on a bank.

I was in the lead and saw a light appear around the corner, it was Dion & a mate who had passed the climb they were looking for, so they turned around to accompany us to the right place. Once in the correct location, Ollie being the youngest was sent up to set up a rope to get us & gear safely up into the Rat Run. Our intended destination was on the upper level near a well-known squeeze called the Organ Grinder. To assist Dion’s safe exit we set up the 10m abseil back to the stream. This was to be our route tomorrow so we abandoned our harnesses etc and headed the 5 minutes to where we planned to sleep. The passage here is dry & wide but spectacularly decorated with stalactites, straws, helictites and curtains. North Island caves sit around 10°, so if you are out of the water and dry it is easy to stay warm. It was off with the wet and on with the dry and set up our sleeping bags.

Coffee first then dinner was quickly constructed from 500ml of boiling water poured into the dehy meal packet & left for 10 minutes while we ate the koura captured earlier as an entrée. Dessert was chocolate.

Because we work to the ‘Leave no Trace’ philosophy, everything needs to come out of the cave with us, including #2s. Being a regular guy I reckoned on 1 a day, meaning 1 dump underground, that was not to be the case for me. 3 plastic bags later we emerged, the score; PB - 3, Ollie – 0. I would not want to drink the stream water without treating it first! So ended the first day.

I had a good sleep only waking at 3am with proof that I had drunk enough the preceding day, needing to walk 5 minutes to the streamway to relieve the pressure. At least it’s down a pretty passage.