Participants: Ken Anderson, David Connard, Matthew Hole, David Jackson, Racheline Jackson, Estelle Lifran, Phil Maynard, Andrew Matthews, Don Matthews, Chris Norton, John Oxley, Richard Pfeil, Carmel Ramwell, Michael Taylor
By sea and sky they came. The combined efforts of turbulence, wind, hail-damaged aircraft radar and the tempestuous waters of Cook Strait were not enough to prevent the greatest ever gathering of SUSS members in New Zealand.
The greatest threat to the expedition came in the form of Toff Lane, Air New Zealand check-in clerk, whose draconian approach to baggage weight restrictions nearly resulted in the enforced abandonment of significant amounts of equipment in the Sydney Airport luggage hall. Then we realised that the 7kg or so of equipment we each removed from our hand luggage to put it under the weight limit could be put in our pockets with no penalty – thus, our luggage made the grade. When we walked around the corner, we also discovered that the 7kg of equipment could be put straight back into our hand luggage again with no-one the wiser.
The second greatest threat came from the major damage to our aircraft, which had flown through a major hailstorm on the way to Sydney and had its radar knocked out. Fortunately, after a few hours at the bar, another plane was found. The third greatest threat came from the disapproving gaze of Wellington customs, who didn’t like the little twigs in the bottom of our tents. This problem was solved with the judicious use of a Dustbuster. All these events conspired to make us about as popular with airline staff as if we had been wearing balaclavas and speaking in a middle Eastern dialect, but we eventually made it out of the airport.
And so it was that all persons and gear eventually arrived in Nelson to undertake a marathon shopping effort in Supa-Value involving five trolleys, a docket several metres long and a nervous breakdown on behalf of the checkout operator, which made us about as popular as David Campese at an All-Blacks reunion. And she thought it would be an easy day in the "400 items or more" aisle.
What would a New Zealand trip be without rain? A trip with really good weather, obviously. However, the first couple of days at Takaka did not meet that description. As the expedition convoy wound up the hill, the heavens opened. The convoy became separated – not as a result of the weather, but because of Phil’s insistence that his vehicle stop for triple ice creams at Motueka. Matthew and Chris, however, battled onward - they had the misfortune to be travelling in the major expedition purchase, a Bedford van, whose idiosyncrasies (such as a portable wiper control, a total lack of suspension, that peculiar ‘leaking petrol’ smell and an engine cowling that spontaneously opened itself) made a sojourn in it about as popular as a spell on the Mir space station. Accordingly, they managed to outmanoeuvre the others and gain the key tent sites at the NSG Takaka Hut, which was already mostly full of Kiwis.
The next morning, three groups set off purposefully through the drizzle, with ropes on their backs and harnesses around their waists. John, Phil, Don, Ken, Richard and Michael sped down the hill to Little Harwoods Cave, with an impressive entrance pitch of around 60m which drops down to kilometres of dry stream passage. Estelle joined them later on, after rectifying a slight omission from the shopping list by driving into Takaka for some milk. Also joining them was Carmel, an English caver who decided to attach herself to our group after coming on a Tuglow trip last year and deciding SUSS were really decent folks, honest. Davids C & J, Racheline and Chris went to the intricate Summit Tomo, while Andrew and Matthew found no other takers for their ambitious plan to rig Middle Earth and go as far as the notorious connection to Greenlink (ie right down the bottom).
After some entertaining moments messing with the rigging, the Summit Tomo people were soon free-diving Sump 1 (during which process they managed not to get even slightly wet, due to a total absence of water in the unfortunately named feature). Low water also permitted easy passage through Sump 2, where several cavers were seen to remove cavesuits and plunge into the cool waters to duck through the airspace and discover - well, not much really, except that when caving without your cavesuit you really feel all those sharp bits of cave so much more when they nestle up against you.
Meanwhile, the Summit Tomo party was having fun blundering around in the misty rain and fog trying to locate the cave. This was harder for David C than the others, as he had unwittingly picked up two left boots from the hut verandah and so his right foot was not only suffering from a severe blister but also a major identity crisis. Before too long, Chris fell into the right doline and called the others over. While they geared up, Chris tootled ahead to rig the first pitch and ensure he didn’t get hit by any large boulders inadvertently knocked down the entrance slope by the others, who were coming to terms with the fact that in big alpine Kiwi caves there are lots of bits that don’t like staying in place.
After running along the stream and up a pitch, they were confronted with a pitch pre-rigged with an intriguing length of New Zealand rope. The rope would have served quite well as one of those cross-sectional cutaways in gear shops showing the inside of a rope, and might also be good as an emergency mop, but really wasn’t up to the job of supporting a caver in safety. At this point, David C, suffering mysterious pains in his leg that were probably at least slightly due to his peculiar choice of footwear, decided that it also wasn’t up to the job of supporting him in safety; and turned tail and fled back out of the cave, leaving the others to negotiate the pitch (which was fortunately only about 5m and could be climbed using the rope as a handline).
A couple of drippy pitches, climbs and pools later saw the remaining trio negotiating the unusually named Wriggling Room, peering up a horribly steep mudslope that seemed to lead to a big passage at the top of a nasty climb and finally finding their way to the pretty Boots Off section (more by chance than by design). Here they admired crystal pools and discovered that what looked like a round trip on the map would also be a round trip in reality if you had a spare double rope or some wings. Although intrigued by a section of the cave labelled Mud and Glory, the lateness of the hour saw them setting off for the surface to wander aimlessly through the fog. Eventually they stumbled across the Bedford, where David C was having not much success at all trying to get to sleep in the back. Best entertainment of the day was backing the Bedford 150m down the dirt road in the fog…
When everyone returned to the hut, they found Matthew and Andrew, who were complaining volubly about the extreme difficulty of finding the connection between Middle Earth and Greenlink. When it was pointed out to them that they’d been looking in altogether the wrong section of cave, they looked rather sheepish. However, after they got back on two legs, took the woollen rugs off their backs and stopped bleating, they were very proud of the fact that they had hidden a rope in one of the more obscure corners of the cave, which some other poor sods would have to go in and pull out.
New arrivals at the hut that night included Carol Layton and Steve Keenlyside, being extremely disloyal to SUSS and participating in a rival trip run by Heather Jeffries from SRGWA. They did a couple of caves in the neighbourhood before disappearing off to Nettlebed for a slumber party.
When you ask a Nelson caver "What is the most dangerous cave you know?" odds are that caver will reply "Greenlink". The odds are particularly good if that caver is one who has been stuck in Greenlink a number of times by rising floodwaters. This is why it was a good thing to speak to double benightee John Atkinson about the cave.
"How long does it take for the cave to flood?" we asked.
"The flood pulse can come through in five seconds," he replied.
Ooh-er. No wonder the cave is about as popular with casual Takaka tourists as the North Head sewage plant. And so it was with not a little trepidation that Matthew set off into Greenlink, with David J and Chris assuring him that they would follow in a few minutes (to give him time to rig the first few pitches, they claimed. Suggestions that they wanted to savour the first rays of NZ sunshine spotted on the trip for a few more minutes were hotly denied).
The cave is definitely scary. From a gaping entrance in a dry-at-the-moment-but-just-you-wait-till-it-rains-mate valley, the cave zooms along a narrow serpentine course through clean washed rock and tumbles down many small drops, with the occasional short pitch thrown in just to add interest. The top section of Greenlink is "dry", which means there isn’t a bloody great river pouring through it (that comes later on). However, there are plenty of awkwardly located pools that ensure a full dampening down of cavers, including the infamous Watergate (a low grovel through a pool that ends up at the top of a 12m pitch). And, of course, most of the cave is narrow enough that you have to take your pack off and grovel along in the stream, which makes things very awkward and damp indeed.
Chris met Matthew shortly after the second pitch, where they spent a few minutes wandering in circles at a series of passage junctions before finding the route on, which they marked with a series of cairns for David J before proceeding. After a couple of hours, they reached the main stream, which was behaving in a very intimidating fashion by looking very big and wet and roaring loudly in a most threatening way. While Matthew started rigging the next pitch, Chris toddled back to look for David, who was just reaching the top of the previous pitch and having strong yearnings for the surface sunshine. It was agreed to act with prudence – she advised us to leave things be and to decamp for the surface, but not before dumping the gear for rigging the rest of the cave at the streamway in anticipation of a bomb-down-to-the-sumps trip tomorrow.
Meanwhile, Don, Ken, Phil, John and Michael set off for Summit Tomo, where they successfully retraced the steps (and slide marks, and scrambles) of the previous day’s party, and conducted extensive critical analysis and reworking of Chris’ rigging. They exited the cave in dribs and drabs. Don and Ken were most amused when, sitting at the cave entrance, Phil’s voice bellowed out from below, exhorting them to:
"Come back - you’ve gone the wrong way!"
"Um - we don’t think so!" they replied, basking in the sunlight.
Don had only just started walking back from Summit Tomo when a shadowy van pulled up beside him and a dozen hands bundled him into the back. The kidnappers all howled with maniacal laughter. That is, all, except for David C, who howled because of the raging infection in the blister on his foot, which he had decided was the source of the mysterious pains that forced him to quit Summit Tomo the day before. This afternoon’s objective was to try and obtain enough drugs to pour into him to stop him noticing. He was dropped off at the hospital while everyone else went off to see the infamous Anatoki River tame eels.
The tame eels were hard to find. We drove right past them at first, and ended up teetering along a precarious dirt track high above the river, which with Matthew driving brought several moments of adventure and suspense. Don asked Matthew if he was familiar with The Wages of Fear. Chris was thinking more along the lines of the final scene of The Italian Job. However, we eventually turned around and discovered the eels, which after the journey were a great disappointment. The Eel Farm entrance was guarded by a formidable farmer’s wife who was obviously determined that no tourists would get in to disturb her valuable tourist attraction.
"Hello", we said, "We’d like to see your eels."
"Can’t. It’s too late, they’ve gone home. I can let you in but I’d have to charge you."
"Well, okay, perhaps we might get a snack from the café then."
"Nup, food’s off. Come back in a few days."
"But we’ve come such a long way to see your eels!"
"Where from?"
"Australia."
"Oh, that’s nothing. If you’d come from South Africa or somewhere I might have reconsidered…"
Although we were clearly about as popular as smokers in an oxygen tent, she grudgingly permitted us to buy postcards of a little girl feeding an eel. She said the photo depicted her daughter. Don asked which one her daughter was. We left very soon afterwards.
Back at the hospital, they decided that DC’s leg just might be salvageable and they wouldn’t amputate just yet. He was given some pills and told to take it easy. Not wanting to ruin his chances of some beaut caving in the Ellis, DC determined to do just that.
Upon returning to the hut, Don received a scolding from Estelle, who had been wondering where on earth he was, particularly as the other Summit Tomo people swore he had left the cave. He was made to promise never to take lifts with strangers in vans again, even if they said they were taking him to a nice State Forest.
Entertainment that evening was provided by Matthew, who decided that the best implement to use to chisel hard carbide waste from his generator was the long sharp blade of his penknife. The (perhaps inevitable) consequence was that Matthew was soon lying flat on the balcony looking rather exsanguinated with eyes rolled back in his head and the insides of his index finger on view for all to see. He was bundled down for some gratuitous stitching by Dr Mike Brewer in Motueka. Mike is a caver, and told Matthew he should take things easy and not get his hand wet for a while. Matthew asked if Mike had been in Greenlink. Mike confessed that, yes, he had been there a couple of times. Matthew asked if it was OK to do Greenlink tomorrow. Mike said, no, not really, and hadn’t Matthew heard that bit about not getting wet? Accordingly, it was an extremely disappointed Matthew who slunk into the hut that night.
The weather forecast was for rain in the afternoon. Oh dear – we still had lots of rope in Greenlink. What to do? The decision – a lightning derig trip. This plan was as about as popular as a dingo at a crèche, but three deriggers were plucked from the mob and given their orders. Chris and Andrew zoomed down to the main stream in about half an hour, grabbed the gear and skedaddled. Phil followed at a more leisurely pace, pausing briefly to play round and round the garden in the maze at the base of the second pitch before continuing with the derigging.
Most other folk had decided to be far more sensible and go for a bushwalk up to Gorge Creek Cave, leaving Matthew skulking at the hut. David C drove them down, and after a brief trip into town for provisions appropriated Matthew’s book and started reading it. The Gorge Creekies had great fun wandering up the creek, swimming in the stream and playing in the tremendous waterfall inside the cave.
Back at the hut, Matthew could take it no more, and decided to tear down to the valley with Chris once he returned from Greenlink to do Little Harwoods. After an unsuccessful attempt to lure Dave C out of the van parked by Gorge Creek and into the cave, they set off down the pitch. They enjoyed a pleasant couple of hours running through the cave, including passing through the inaptly named Sump 2, hunting for some misplaced confectionery (can’t have Moro Bars and jelly babies roaming free in a cave now, can we?) and searching for the exit (it’s only a huge 60m daylight shaft guys…).
It was time to face facts. Middle Earth was about as popular as a slide coated with crushed glass. No-one wanted to go down it. So, it had to be derigged. Which meant someone had to go down it.
At this news, pretty well everyone took two steps back. John, Don, Phil, Carmel and Andrew picked up the 200m rope and disappeared promptly in the direction of Harwoods Hole, while Racheline and David C set off for its smaller cousin. David was particularly intrigued with the stories that the cows in the paddock would come up and probe you with their noses if you lay down in the paddock. He is a truly sick man. Matthew, Richard and Michael started poring over the maps of Summit Tomo. Janna, a Russian staying at the hut, was so worried about possible conscription that she joined them. David J left for the Riwaka Resurgence, pledging to follow Swiss caver Peter Negro to sump 3, and leaving the rest of us wondering how he was going to do it with no dive gear. This left Ken and Chris holding the baby (or, more precisely, the derig packs) and so they reluctantly set off into the cave.
The normal pleasures of a derig trip (hauling bags of wet, muddy rope several hundred metres up a cave) were compounded on this trip by the infamous Hidden Rope. Chris promptly forgot Matthew’s clear instructions that the rope was down a passage marked with a row of black stones, and dragged Ken through an icy roof sniff to a very unpleasant corner of the cave where lots of rocks pounced on them before they realised that the rope was actually not down here. Wandering aimlessly through Smorges Hall, they finally stumbled upon a row of black stones – the penny dropped, and the rope was eventually found.
Unfortunately, along with the penny, Chris also managed to drop the tiny brass screw top from his carbide water chamber into the stream right at the bottom of the cave, and despite much frantic searching it could not be found. This made for an interesting trip back up the 300+ metres from the bottom, since Chris had to ensure that the generator never tipped over and spilt water. Upon emerging from the cave and noticing that it was 3:30pm, Chris drove hell for vinyl (like hell for leather, but less comfortable) to Motueka. There, he was eventually able to get some replacement screw tops from Dean’s Truck Service Centre (where else would you go for caving light spares?) in the dying business moments before Christmas.
Meanwhile, drama was afoot at the mighty Harwoods Hole … drama so dramatic that it cannot be contained within the confines of this humble report and warrants separate narration by the esteemed Mr Matthews (see separate report). All that will be mentioned here is that it involved a 176m drop, lots of loose rocks and some tourists who managed to make themselves as popular with the cavers as Barry Manilow at a Napalm Death concert.
The rain began falling in earnest once more that afternoon. This would not have been a problem, but unfortunately it also began falling in Takaka. Most people were back at the hut in time to miss the worst of it – except for Matthew. After his Summit Tomo trip, where he had climbed the extremely dangerous mud slope near the Wriggling Room, he had sauntered into the scrub to search for Olympia Cave. He eventually returned in a very bedraggled state announcing that either the topo map was wrong or there was an enormous magnetic anomaly in Takaka Hill, since he couldn’t find the cave. Other possibilities suggested themselves, but people were far too polite to mention them.
Everyone was most surprised when David J returned completely dry, despite having been to sumps 3A and 3B in the Riwaka resurgence and having sketched a map to prove it. His secret? A recently discovered entrance on the hill above the resurgence (nicknamed Simply Sumpless) which bypasses sumps 1 and 2 and gives direct access to about 1km of walkthrough passage, some of which is impressively large. David left a tapemarked trail to the entrance for others to follow over the next few days.
There was a howling gale and driving rain last night, which must have discouraged Santa from visiting Takaka because we didn’t get any presents. Well, Santa missed out - as the day eventually dawned bright and sunny, and everyone was soon dreaming of a black Christmas.
For Don, Andrew, Estelle, David C, Racheline, Carmel and Phil, this meant a trip to Simply Sumpless. John came as far as the resurgence entrance, but decided to spend the day lying in the sun after a slight ankle problem due to a rather ungraceful waterfall descent in Harwoods the previous day.
Meanwhile, Matthew, Ken and Chris buzzed down Harwoods Hole, side by side with Peter Negro, Pete Hobson and Janna who also thought this would be the perfect Christmas excursion. After the previous night’s storm, the track was under about half an inch of water, most of which seemed to be streaming down the sides of the Hole.
"Is it raining up there, Chris?" enquired Pete at the bottom of the hole, eyeing the cascades streaming down about him.
"No, bright and sunny," Chris said.
"Well, she’ll be really pomping, eh!" Pete exclaimed with a grin.
Pete was right. The normally dry entrance section had a substantial stream running down it, turning the chutes into waterslides where much amusement was had bumping into one another and falling into the pools. (Of course, kids, these stunts were performed by experts - don’t try this at home.) The main streamway was flowing strongly, which obscured the normally crystal-clear pools but made for some exciting waterfall downclimbs. Matthew, determined to keep his finger dry, was occasionally seen vanishing beneath the water with his left hand protruding from the surface, flapping frantically in its attempt to ward off the inevitable saturation. Eventually, the three were spat out of the Starlight Cave entrance where they lay gasping in the sunshine.
But the day was yet young, and they headed down the hill to Gorge Creek Cave, where Ken remarked on the much larger flows of water in the stream outside. This was nothing, however, compared to the flows met inside. As they crawled along the entranceway, our intrepid party could have sworn that someone was trying to launch a Saturn 5 rocket in the cave. When they arrived in the waterfall chamber, they realised that in fact someone had just tipped the contents of Warragamba Dam down a funnel that emptied into this cave. The water was doing a fine lemming impression - tearing along the high level passage, bounding with glee from the top of the fall and being dashed around the walls of the chamber to fill it with spray. It was obviously suicidal to venture further through the cave (although Matthew was caught eyeing the waterfall climb thoughtfully). They left the cave, where they splashed around in the resurgence for a while before meeting Pete Negro and Janna, who intended to walk out downstream, and Michael, Richard and David J, who had come down Harwoods shortly after the others. After some considerable time lazing about in the sun, Michael and Ken joined Pete and Janna walking downstream while the others hot-footed (well, hot-everythinged really, given the weather) it back up the hill.
Our plans that night included dancing round a bonfire ululating loudly, sacrificing a sheep or two and drinking their blood, but we felt a bit tired and instead opted to settle for flambéeing Christmas pudding in Don’s Bundaberg Rum; a fitting fiery finale to such a glorious day.
This morning, it was realised that in their rush to get to Motueka before the shops closed on Christmas Eve, Ken and Chris had left a 12m tape halfway down Middle Earth. Were they going to go back and get it? No way!! (Although, as Chris noted, they would have loved to go back - they just didn’t want to deprive anyone else of the pleasures of the cave by hogging it for themselves.) So they buzzed off down the hill to Simply Sumpless, taking Matthew, Richard and Janna along with them. Don said he’d love to go, but had promised to take David C, Racheline and Estelle through Harwoods. John, Phil and Andrew invented some very spurious excuse about needing to examine closely the Pupu springs (oh, and derig Little Harwoods). This meant it all came down to David J, who was booted out of the van by the side of the Canaan Road with a rope for the entrance pitch and a vague suggestion that someone might be along to pick him up in a few hours.
The Simply Sumpless trip got off to a bad start when Richard discovered he hadn’t brought his cavesuit. He elected to lie in the sunshine and await the return of the others, listening to a local radio station that played an eclectic blend of ambient, world, country, gothic and merry-go-round steam organ music. The good thing about Simply Sumpless is that it is the closest cave to an ice cream shop, so a quick trip to Motueka was made for triple cone icecreams before an intensive gearwashing session in the Riwaka River. The highlight of the gearwashing was seeing Matthew, who had been studiously avoiding any above-ground contact with water for the entire week, actually stick his head in the river for a few seconds.
The Little Harwoods derig was accomplished with little difficulty, and before too long a submerged study of the Takaka River was being undertaken by the deriggers. Eventually, John remembered David J sitting by the side of the Canaan Road, and travelled back to pick him up, dodging the hordes of wild hippies tearing along the road in trucks. Over the last few days, a huge array of marquees had been springing up along the side of the road, with gaudy decorations and big speakers. This was in preparation for The Gathering, a major musical event to be held on New Years Eve. We wondered if the organisers of New Zealand’s answer to Woodstock had thought of what would happen when hundreds of clapped out hippiemobiles driven by drunken, drug-crazed individuals started buzzing along the perilous Canaan Road. We heard later that only two cars went over the side, which was a surprisingly good effort…
That evening, sitting around the hut, we realised something was missing … Ah, yes! The Harwoods party! Peter Negro had generously asked them to derig his rope as well as ours, so they were going to have quite a load to bring back. Chris and Matthew set out on a rescue mission. This, it turned out, was a good thing. David C had gone for a tumble in the cave - coincidentally, on just the same waterfall where John had fallen three days ago. David had done something nasty to his knee, which made for a torturous journey back up the hill once out of the cave and many screamed imprecations to whoever is the deity responsible for the installation of escalators on scree slopes (a very lazy deity, given the sparse distribution of such features). Upon returning to the path, the others went off to derig, and he sat on a rock minding the gear and looking dejected until a mob of passing tourists took pity on him and offered to carry everyone’s cave packs back to the car. This was how Chris and Matthew found things, and so after scooping up a spare 200m rope and shuttling it back to the cars they plied David with Moro bars and warm clothing as he returned the last few metres before collapsing gratefully into the comfortable van.
And so to the end of the beginning of the New Zealand trip. Our extraordinary mountain of gear was loaded once more into the caravanserai and we set off down the hill to our lodging for the night at the Tahuna Beach Holiday Camp. This delightful establishment offers holiday camping as it was done in Germany in the late 1930s - a security checkpoint at the gate, announcements barked through loudspeakers, guards roaming with walkie-talkies and threats of eviction for anyone breaking the 10km/h speed limit within its confines. The proximity to the Nelson Airport meant regular flyovers by light aircraft. However, we weren’t fussy.
A frantic amount of energy was expended in assembling our equipment for two weeks in the Ellis Basin, where we were departing at the crack of dawn the next day. Carbide, radios, helicopters and maps all had to be co-ordinated. And, of course, there was another massive shopping expedition to Supa-Value, which made us as popular with the staff as Hannibal Lecter at a vegetarian’s convention. As we pushed our multiple trolleyloads past the checkout operator, she asked what we were doing. "Oh, there was a strange bunch of people in here last weekend - they also bought a whole lot of stuff. They were going caving too." I wonder who they could have been.
One person not quite so busy was David C. The prognosis on his leg was not good – he would probably not be able to put much weight on it at all for some time, let alone walk into the Ellis and start doing 800m deep caves. So much for taking it easy for a week so that he could go to the Ellis. "Oh dear," he said, "I’m just going to have to fly there in the helicopter rather than walk in. What a tragedy. Woe is me…" (etc). We suggested he stick around Nelson and find an attractive Swiss backpacker to tend to him and give him sponge baths. For some reason, he elected to spend a week with the rest of us. There’s no accounting for taste.
Finally, all our equipment was packed, boxed, labelled and stowed for a quick morning getaway. All that remained was for us all to gather in obesiance around Matthew and heap upon him our thanks for his efforts in organising the trip.
"What are you doing that for?" he responded. "There’s still another two weeks to go. Now bugger off - I have to get up early and want to go to sleep."
We figured he probably wasn’t in the mood to accept our sacrificial offering of three freshly gutted ewes and so slipped them into his spare bag for him to discover on his return in a few weeks when they had had the chance to develop in character. With alarms set for 5am, everyone slumped into bed, sung to sleep by the whine of the aeroplane engines, the crackle of the loudspeakers, the panting of the guard dogs, the moans of David C and the gentle buzzing of the fluorescent searchlights. Peace.