Caving in New Zealand is an established hobby as well as being a part of commercial tourism. Recreational caving is practised by several hundred members of caving associations all over New Zealand, who take advantage of the widespread

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

karst Karst () is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble carbonate rocks such as limestone and Dolomite (rock), dolomite. It is characterized by features like poljes above and drainage systems with sinkholes and caves underground. Ther ...

cave systems present in the country, especially in the Waitomo District of the North Island and in the

Nelson Nelson may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Nelson'' (1918 film), a historical film directed by Maurice Elvey * ''Nelson'' (1926 film), a historical film directed by Walter Summers * ''Nelson'' (opera), an opera by Lennox Berkeley to a lib ...

- Tasman region of the South Island. There are also several hundred thousands of visitors to various tourist caves in New Zealand per year,Caving tourism
(from Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Accessed 2008-06-16.) though a majority of these trips would not properly be called

caving Caving, also known as spelunking (United States and Canada) and potholing (United Kingdom and Ireland), is the recreational pastime of exploring wild cave systems (as distinguished from show caves). In contrast, speleology is the scientific ...

History

Overview

New Zealand caving as an exploratory sport is thought to have started with a group of

Auckland Auckland ( ; ) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. It has an urban population of about It is located in the greater Auckland Region, the area governed by Auckland Council, which includes outlying rural areas and ...

-area people who started to explore the

lava cave A lava cave is any cave formed in volcanic rock, though it typically means caves formed by volcanic processes, which are more properly termed volcanic caves. Sea caves, and other sorts of erosional and crevice caves, may be formed in volcanic rock ...

s in the volcanic cones of the area in the 1940s (though commercialised trips through caves at

Waitomo Caves Waitomo is a rural community in the King Country region of New Zealand's North Island. There are several solutional cave systems in the area around the village, which are popular tourist attractions. Restaurants and accommodation are centred in ...

had actually already existed for several decades). The group quickly progressed to exploring caves in the

Waikato The Waikato () is a region of the upper North Island of New Zealand. It covers the Waikato District, Waipā District, Matamata-Piako District, South Waikato District and Hamilton City, as well as Hauraki, Coromandel Peninsula, the nort ...

and

King Country The King Country ( Māori: ''Te Rohe Pōtae'' or ''Rohe Pōtae o Maniapoto'') is a region of the western North Island of New Zealand. It extends approximately from Kawhia Harbour and the town of Ōtorohanga in the north to the upper reaches of th ...

areas, and the New Zealand Speleological Society was founded in 1949 by Henry Lambert, with the first rough facilities at Waitomo being established in 1955.Caving in New Zealand
(from Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand) In 1957, the discovery of Harwood's Hole in the South Island was to fully establish New Zealand as a country with extremely promising cave systems, and the cave with its 183 metre deep vertical entry shaft, and its passages extending for many hundreds of meters into the depths, was for a long time the deepest and most famous non-commercial cave in New Zealand. The area around Nelson also contains most of New Zealand's deepest caves (most discovered in the following decades), including Bulmer Cavern, a 70 km long cave system. New Zealand's cavers are mostly organised in the New Zealand Speleological Society (NZSS), with 6 affiliated caving clubs with a total of 400 members all over the country. The affiliated clubs are: Auckland Speleological Group (ASG), Hamilton Tomo Group (HTG), Manawatu Speleological Group (MSG), Wellington Caving Group (WCG), Nelson Speleological Group (NSG) and Canterbury Caving Group (CCG) There are thousands of caves in New Zealand and their make up is generally limestone, marble, lava and sandstone. Location of caves are generally not disclosed as this assists in the conservation of the caves and artifacts held within them. To join the society only requires an email to membership officer.

Accidents and rescues

There have been a number of notable caving accidents since the 1940s, and at least four deaths .Caving equipment and culture
(from Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand) On 4 January 1960, Peter Lambert was killed by falling rocks while being winched out of Harwoods Hole,Edgar Sixtus - One of the Early Cave Personalities
(from Red Rose Cave and Pothole Club Newsletter Volume 36 Number 2 Article 3 June 1999) and in 1995, Dave Weaver drowned while

cave diving Cave-diving is underwater diving in water-filled caves. It may be done as an extreme sport, a way of exploring flooded caves for scientific investigation, or for the underwater search and recovery, search for and recovery of divers or, as in th ...

in Pearse Resurgence near Nelson. In 1998, one of the most active cavers of the country, Kieran McKay, broke his jaw in Bulmer Cavern on Mt Owen. While the cavern has few squeezes and crawls, the operation to retrieve him from deep within the cave occupied around 80 cavers (in direct position or as support) from all over the country for several days. In 2007, Michael Brewer, another experienced caver, was struck by falling rock deep within the Greenlink-Middle Earth cave, in an incident which attracted widespread media attention in the country. Brewer suffered cracked ribs, concussion, and a broken pelvis. It took about 3 days to get him to the surface (a 3 km distance normally taking 5 hours), and while most of the distance was covered with Brewer on a

stretcher A stretcher, gurney, litter, or pram is an medical device, apparatus used for moving patients who require medical care. A basic type (cot or litter) must be carried by two or more people. A wheeled stretcher (known as a gurney, trolley, bed or ...

, and several tight squeezes were widened with explosives, he had to be pushed and pulled through some sections. The effort involved more than 50 cavers and cost around NZ$100,000. In 2008, Jane Furket, a 28-year-old experienced recreational caver and member of the Nelson Caving Club, fell in the Luckie Strike cave west of Waitomo. She broke her hip and lost three teeth. New Zealand

cave rescue Cave rescue is a highly specialized field of wilderness rescue in which injured, trapped or lost cave explorers are medically treated and extracted from various cave environments. Cave rescue borrows elements from confined space rescue, rope resc ...

s are undertaken by SAR teams composed of experienced cavers who have also undergone specialised training courses and exercises.

Caves

As well as lava caves in the Auckland volcanic field there are numerous limestone caves in the

North Island The North Island ( , 'the fish of Māui', historically New Ulster) is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, islands of New Zealand, separated from the larger but less populous South Island by Cook Strait. With an area of , it is the List ...

, with the most well known being the

. The longest and deepest caves are in the Kahurangi National Park in the

South Island The South Island ( , 'the waters of Pounamu, Greenstone') is the largest of the three major islands of New Zealand by surface area, the others being the smaller but more populous North Island and Stewart Island. It is bordered to the north by ...

Commercial caving operations

New Zealand offers a number of adventure tourism activities and one of them is caving. Most of the commercial caving is done in the Waitomo area, but there are also tours offered in

Fiordland Fiordland (, "The Pit of Tattooing", and also translated as "the Shadowlands"), is a non-administrative geographical region of New Zealand in the south-western corner of the South Island, comprising the western third of Southland. Most of F ...

and on the West Coast. Black water rafting, where the participants float through caves on tyre inner tubes, was an early tourism venture and has become extremely popular.

References

External links

New Zealand Speleological Society (NZSS)
(umbrella organisation of the New Zealand caving clubs) Tourist attractions in New Zealand