raggles.kiwi

Stormy Pot & Nettlebed

Only a day after returning from Nelson, I received a phone call from a friend - an invitation to join a through trip of Stormy Pot - Nettlebed! One of the other members of the group was injured and was unable to make it - this was too good an oppourtunity to pass up! I had less than 24 hours to prepare for the three day trip so I scurried about finding all the things I would need, and next thing I new we were in the car heading back to Kahurangi. We had chosen to fly up to the entrance by helicopter (fine by me!) and were given a grand tour of the area around the entrance by our leader (who was one of the members of the team that made the connection with Nettlebed).

After everyone had gone poop we headed down the entrance series of abseils (about ~400m in total). This didn't take nearly as long as I thought it might, and before I knew it we were into nice open passage. The only real challenge of the day was negotiating the Gates of Troy which thankfully was dry - after seeing footage of people trying to keep their head above water through this squeeze this was definitely the outcome I was gunning for.

We arrived at the chocolate room in good spirits, and proceeded to cook up a feed. It wasn't the warmest place - there seemed to be a draught coming from somewhere even though we had blocked up the other end of the room, and I was quite cold.  This continued into the night, as I managed to break the zip on my sleeping bag (I was carrying my own bag as the campsites were only equipped with 5 bags and there were 6 in our group), which meant my sleeping bag was in blanket mode the whole night.  We had an early start the next day, as we had quite a distance to cover to get to Salvation Hall.  Again it was mostly easy caving, although the River of Clowns while spectacular is certainly very cold.  I found the large chambers the most interesting, its like climbing mountains underground!  The connection squeeze was passed without incident, then we were in to Nettlebed!  Some fantastic passage filled with popcorn ensued then we arrived a a 40m climb over beautiful white calcium covered walls to the start of Diamond Alley.  Two of us headed down Diamond Alley in awe of its spectacular beauty.  Unfortunately we had a miscommunication which meant that we headed up the Knee Trembler to the Funk Hole instead of down towards Salvation Hall.  By the time we realised our mistake, the others had slipped round behind us and were out of site.  Now unsure where to go, I went back down Diamond Alley to make sure they weren't there, and luckily by the time I returned someone had come back to fetch us.  This added an hour to our already long day and we arrived at Salvation Hall around 10.30pm.

After having dinner and using the pee funnel I was off to sleep - I slept much better than the previous night after fixing my sleeping bag.  We got up some time in the late morning the next day (I didn't carry a watch) and made our way through Nettlebed - through Ancient Britain, The Overlander, The Up and Overs, The Ducks and finally The Hinkle Horn Honking Holes.  I was anxious to see how I was going to fit as I heard it can be somewhat challenging for some taller people.  The rushing air was quite intimidating, and then almost comical as each of us negotiated one of the three squeezes and blocked the gaps resulted in complete stillness for a few seconds until they popped out the other side and the rushing air resumed.  Thankfully I fit through all the squeezes with relative ease but I've no doubt if I hadn't been told the correct way to orient myself through them it would have been much more challenging.

From the Honking Holes it is only a short stroll to the Nettlebed entrance, and to a bright and warm sunny afternoon.  We stopped to check out the Pearse Resurgence on the way back - crazy to imagine the divers have got 200m down and still no end in sight!