Takaka Caving Trip

Caving

I was sick with some sort of tummy bug just before we went down, so I had a miserable journey there and missed the first cave the others did, spent the day sleeping.


30/9/10
Middle Earth
Me, Chris, Mieke, Kieran
Fine outside
4-5 hours
We went in via the main entrance, traveled down the old route to Smaug's Hall and had a quick peek on the pathway towards Kanga's House. On the way back up we exited via the Hobit Hole/eco pitch.
More dodgy bolts and a tatty piece of rope into Smaug's.

1/9/14
Tramping across to Salsbury lodge via Myttons and Balloon huts.
Me, Chris, Mieke, Kieran
Fine
12km
3-5hrs
I had not expected to be going alpine tramping, so only had very light shoes and a small pack, which made life interesting.

2/9/14
Te Mananui
Me, Chris, Mieke, Kieran
Overcast, deteriorating Northerlies
5hours
We started from the downstram end of the cave and worked our way up to the Sphinx with detours to the bone yard and grand gallery on the way.

2/9/14
Tramping back via the Takaka valley and the Bullock Creek route.
10.5km
Heavy drizzle and cloud.
Me and Mieke
3-5hrs
The boys went ahead and only having had a quick look at the map we weren't sure which way we should go when we came to an intersection and Bullock Creek was not mentioned on the signs. Chris had mentioned about some super cool bivvys (and they were super cool), turned out we weren't meant to go that way. Eventually we got on track and made it back to the Landy well into darkness hours.

3/9/14
Ed's Cellar
S/W winds, scattered snow showers
Me, Chris, Mieke, Kieran
We didn't make it very far down because we got side tracked by a number of leads and climbs. Most of them had been seen before but none were on the map. It would be an excellent candidate for remapping and a bit of bolt and drill climbing.

4/9/14
Middle Earth
15cm of fresh snow on the ground and cool southerlies
Me, Chris, Mieke, Kieran

We decided to change plans from Harwoods to Middle earth with the huge potential for a flash flood from snow melt. We went in the Hobbit hole and found our way to the Light house series. We were all feeling pretty spent and not that keen on the 110m series of pitches, let alone coming back up them. We bumped into the french baker/caver- Ben and he showed us some of the small side passages to exquisite formation at the top end.