Location: Waitomo Caves
Author: Aaron Jackson
Participants: Colin Arnott (co-leader), Solomon Wilby (co-leader), Emma Tyson (co-leader), Aaron Jackson, Mina Cullen, Lulu Cullen, Sven, and Guillaume
Date: 30th December, 2023
On the second-to-last day of 2023, an intrepid group of spelunkers (that’s a wonderful word, isn’t it?) set out full of anticipation for a day filled with walking, wading, crawling, squeezing, wriggling, and abseiling our way through some cold, wet and muddy holes in the ground – specifically, the rather impressive ones in Waitomo. We were a motley group of nine, consisting of: three capable leaders (Colin, Solomon and Emma), three enthusiastic newbies (Myself, Mina and Lulu) and two Frenchmen (Sven and Guillaume) who had found their way onto the trip through a series of mutual connections.
After some faffing about with gear in the carpark and remarking on the excellent weather that we would soon leave behind, we cheerily set off to begin our journey into the underworld. We walked along a muddy track, and then bush-bashed our way to the cave entrance. This proved a little tricky to find, and we were obliged to take Colin at his word when he said something to the effect of: “it’s much easier to navigate below ground than above it”. Nevertheless, we managed to find the correct hole in the ground, prepared ourselves for entry, and descended into the darkness.
Once properly inside the cave, we were given the obligatory safety briefing, then lead on a route through various twists and turns, admiring some spectacular mineral formations on the way. They were an astonishing variety of shapes and sizes; long and delicate straws, massive columns, flowing curtains, dagger-like stalactites… one particularly impressive formation was called “the birthday candle”, a name which thoroughly understates the immensity of the structure. It is a massive stalagmite that pushes up from the ground to a height of about 6-7 metres and is about 2m wide at the base, which, according to Wikipedia, makes it the tallest known stalagmite in the country. Obviously moved by the moment, someone in the group started us all singing happy birthday (I’m not sure who it was to).
With speleothems (another fun caving word) suitably admired, we continued deeper into the cave and eventually came to a section that required us to abseil down a deep crack. This seriously slowed our progress, but the delay was more than made up for by the feeling of sheer awesomeness that comes with abseiling in a cave. Once we had all managed to make it down in one piece (special thanks to Solomon and Colin for making sure no one died!), we started walking along a subterranean stream. At one stage, the cold water reached a level known as “critical depth”, and anguished yelps were heard from a few of the males in the group. Eventually we reached a point where we had to use a cave ladder to ascend up to the next stage of our journey. Cave ladders are fickle beasts, and a small waterfall didn’t make things any easier, but thanks Colin’s reliable belaying we all made it up intact.
Soon after this, our guides decided they would like to have a bit of fun. Sven and Guillaume were sent into a small hole and told to “just keep going”. The rest of us (excluding Colin, Solomon, and Emma, i.e., the people who knew what they were doing) merrily piled in and discovered that we had been directed into a very tight, very muddy, and apparently dead-ended hole. Eventually we were persuaded that yes, this is actually a dead end, no, it does not lead anywhere, and yes, this is all just a joke. With some difficulty, 6 slightly irritated but (mostly) secretly happy fools slid out, thoroughly covered in mud. Side quest completed, we moved on to our next major obstacle: the ominously named “organ grinder”. As it turns out, this name is not much of an exaggeration – it describes a very narrow horizontal gap, so narrow that the larger cavers in our group had to exhale slightly to squeeze through. Apparently (according to Colin), the method for getting larger people through is for them to remove as much clothing as required and attempt to slide through. Fortunately, we did not have to resort to this.
On our way out of the cave, we had another abseiling section to navigate. As this would take some time to set up, a few of us went to explore a small cavern with some special mineral formations in it (I don’t know the proper name for them). A piece of laminated paper near the entrance informed us that these formations were so old and fragile that we needed to remove our overalls to prevent them being coated in mud and damaged. With great anticipation, we stripped off our filthy overalls and entered. The walls were covered in small, intricate structures, glittering white, with delicate straws hanging from the ceiling. Walking through in my thermals with bare feet, it almost felt sacred. It was all incredibly beautiful, but with limited time, we eventually pulled ourselves away from it and went back to where the abseiling gear had been set up.
Once we got everyone down the cliff in one piece, we realised that we were running well behind schedule, and made haste towards the cave exit to avoid an unwanted search and rescue callout. With the critical message sent, all that was left was for us to enjoy a well-earned dinner. This magnificent meal was eaten on the ground in the carpark and consisted of: Colin’s carrots collected from the dumpster behind Farro, some chips, a few miscellaneous leftover snacks, and some beers generously provided by the excellent Sven. It was a fitting end to a thoroughly enjoyable day.
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