The morning began with us leaving the RSA car park and dumping our grey waste at the Motueka dump station ready for the trip over the big Takaka hill. Alas, as we started to drive out of Motueka, past the RSA our 4 neighbours from the last 2 nights drove out of the gate just in front of us, so we now made a convoy of 5 buses! Incidentally these buses were all travelling around together and were from Paeroa. We tried to allow some distance between us by stopping to let other traffic past but kept catching up to Smoky Joe, the rear-gunner, which was emitting huge clouds of black smoke the whole way up.
We are so pleased we did although we were having second thoughts on the drive there as we followed a rough track through a farm.
The walk itself was easy initially as it followed along the edge of a dry river but then it started climbing steeply for 30 minutes or so and was quite slippery. Lots of rest stops were needed!
However it was well worth the effort - such visual impact as soon as we arrived. Even though it is a shallow cave the stalactites and stalagmites were absolutely awesome, the cave bring recognised for it's nationally significant Phytokarst which is where plants and calcium work together to "grow" the stalactites and stalagmites. Because of the plant content in the stalactites those near the entrance have bent out towards the light.
Darcy Manson who originally owned the cave did guided tours there in the early 1900s but tours ceased after the 1929 Murchison Earthquake of 7.8 magnitude.
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