(written today!!!)
Fun day today. 😊
I actually stayed in my van until somewhere around noonish, I think, trying to catch up a little bit on my journal entries.
I got notes taken for some recent days that were missing notes, and then I got four journal entries completed from back in November.
Crazy… I’m a month behind. 😶
I don’t think I’ve ever been that far behind. 😅
I keep planning to do my writing at night, so I don’t waste valuable daylight time staring at my phone, but then the night rolls around, and I’m tired and don’t have the discipline to take the time to write.
So I just get further and further behind. 😬
But I got notes taken for a couple days that I didn’t have notes for, and I got four actual full entries written, so… that’s progress. 🎉
Let’s hope I can keep it up! 🤞
I put Micro John in my pack, along with some toilet paper, headed over to the pit toilet and emptied the contents that I had transferred from the forest floor.
This really works out fabulously (having Micro John). 🎉
I had thought that I might go right back to my van for a bit before doing the natural bridge walk, but I ended up just going on ahead on the walk, leaving my van door open and my key in the ignition. 🙃
I had thought I was in a different place than I was. I thought the Mangapohue Natural Bridge was part of a cave network I’d explored with Chase back in ’22, but nope!
It turned out to be this massive bridge with trees growing on the top. It was probably wide enough to fit an eight-lane road on top. 😲
It was… so cool!
Definitely took me by surprise. Unfortunately, I’m pretty confident that not a single picture I have can really do it justice.
Where’s my brother Richard when you need him? 🙃
The little Google maps showed the rocking path as being a loop, and there was a split in the path after crossing the bridge over the creek from the parking lot, so I assumed the map was correct, but… no. It wasn’t. The map is wrong. It’s one way. It looks like the path keeps going, but it gradually disappears as it goes further into the bush.
After getting back to the van, I spent a little more time catching up on journal stuff before making the decision to drive back toward Gardeners Gut to do a bit of cave re-exploration.
Back in ’22, I’d explored the cave with Chase, based on the recommendation I’d gotten from a woman named Emma who I believe I met at the Kāwhia Hot Water Beach? I don’t remember for sure.
We explored deep into the cave, up to an in-cave waterfall, and then I went a bit further (Chase stayed behind, not wanting to get wet passing by the falls).
I didn’t go much further because I didn’t want to leave Chase behind for too long.
This time, I thought I would go back and explore a bit further into the cave, so I headed on up the official bush walk, passing by some people who were just concluding their tour through Aranui Cave (wearing wet suits and sitting on inner tubes).
After going a bit further, I decided to head back to the parking area to leave a last-minute deposit with the toilets.
Nothing like needing to go number two inside of a cave. 😅
Though I was prepared for that. 😎 I just… didn’t want two. 😉
Sadly, as I was walking along the path to the cave, I found a bird that had managed to get its leg caught between two pieces of vegetation.
It could see blood, and I’m guessing it has broken it’s leg/foot. 😞
I found a stick and lifted the bird up a bit, and then pulled on one of the pieces of vegetation that it was caught on, which opened up the gap, and off the bird flew.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t see where it flew to, so I couldn’t see if it was going to be able to stand on both feet. Honestly, I doubt it, given the blood I saw. But one can hope. 🤞
It took me a little bit of time to find the cave again. The coordinates that I had saved from last time were not correct. I realized a lot quicker this time, as I knew I needed to be down by the river, and the coordinates were up in the hill.
Fortunately, I still had that conversation with Emma from 3 years ago open, so I could see the pictures and conversation that we had had that helped guide me to the cave back then.
I had thought about trying to find one of the other entrances to the cave, as I no there are at least two, and there might even be three or four?
There’s definitely a lower section and an upper section.
I tried to find the upper section for a little bit before giving up and heading back to the lower section, having already arranged with Emma that I was going to be exploring the lower section and not having reliable reception at that particular point.
So in I went. 🙃
This cave combines two of my favorite activities, caving, and creek walking. 🙃 (The cave experience involves following the creek deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper into the hills/mountains.
The vast majority of the cave is like walking through a slot canyon with a roof. Most of the time, the roof is dozens of feet above your head but quite narrow. Here and there it opens up into bigger rooms, and also here and there, there are tighter formations to navigate.
There were places that I remembered inside the cave, which was fun. 🙂 And I took a bunch of pictures of different formations, probably many of the same ones as last time. 🙃
I’m sure some of the pictures will turn out pretty decently, and some… won’t.
Making new memories. 🙂
Strengthening older memories. 🙂
At one point, after passing a climbing rope that was dangling from probably 40 or 50 ft above, and after having been in the cave for I think 2 hours or so, I started to wonder if somehow the waterfall that I remembered was no longer there.
I had spent so much time in the cave that it seems like I should have come to the waterfall quite a while ago.
Starting to get a little nervous, I started walking a little faster. I didn’t want to get so far into the cave that I couldn’t get back out in time (I’d told Emma to send someone after me if I didn’t make it out and back in touch with her by 9:30 p.m.).
It really seemed like I’d gone in further than we did last time, but I kept going.
Finally, I reached the waterfall I remembered from the same adventure back in ’22. 🙏
It seemed so. much. further. this time. 😶
Anyway, I went past the waterfall, and continued deeper and deeper into the cave. Eventually, I came to a spot where a massive mineral formation came down nearly all the way to the water. I was obliged to either try and carry my backpack with only about enough space for a backpack between the water and the formation or to leave the backpack behind.
I chose the latter, hanging with my pack up on a nearby formation and proceeding forward with just my headlamp (and a broken headlamp in my pocket that I’d found in the stream running through the cave).
I passed a second waterfall, and then a third probably within the first couple hundred meters after the first, and then I went probably another 2 or 300 m further into the cave before finally deciding to turn around.
I’d used the same headlamp for the entire trip so far, without recharging, and if it went out in my little extracurricular jaunt after leaving my pack, then I’d be feeling my way back through the cave for at least a few hundred meters to get back to my pack.
Doable, yes, as you’re just following the stream, but certainly not fun. I likely would have come out with lots of scrapes and bruises on my shins, arms, and head. 🙃
Anyway, I made my way back to my pack, pretty wet all over from crawling on my hands and knees through the super low sections of the cave. There aren’t very many of those, only pretty deep back in there where I was, but those few are enough to soak you pretty good.
Amazingly, the walk back, including stopping to take a few more pictures, only took 45 minutes.
😲
So I guess maybe I wasn’t in as far as I thought I was?
I’m gonna guess I navigated about 3 kilometers deep into the cave (40 minutes at a fairly speedy walk out that I’m going to peg at 3 mph?).
That section of the cave is 12 km long, so… Only about a quarter of the way in. 🙃
On the way back, I did a bit of Creek hiking instead of following the trail, before running into some waterfalls that were unrealistic to try and down climb.
Then I re-explored the huge cave that I thought was where I might be on my first stop of the day. I didn’t remember that Gardeners Gut and this huge cave were in the same Ruakuri Bushwalk area.
I got back to the van wet and a bit cold. It was dusk, with night falling quickly.
Chatted with a couple traveling together, one from the USA and one from Scotland. They were wondering if I knew if we could stay overnight in the parking area here.
That was actually my next order of business. I believe Chase and I had stayed the night at the upper parking lot, but I didn’t know if there were any “no freedom camping” signs anywhere.
So I started playing an Alex O’Connor podcast episode while walking up the road to the upper parking lot, surveying it for signs, and then doing the same on the walk back down to the lower parking lot.
No prohibition signs. 😎
I gave the couple I met, Arden and Stephan, coordinates for the entrance to the cave as well as a link to the DOC website that explains the freedom camping rules, as they thought they could only stay in places that had signs specifically permitting freedom camping.
Gratefully, the rule is pretty much the opposite. You’re allowed to stay at any and all DOC areas unless there are signs prohibiting freedom camping.
And now here I am, 11:00 p.m. at night, actually getting my journal written for the night!
🥳
Love and hugs.
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 