Blog: Crazy cavers and frustrated students need a release

[Wayne Harrison]

10:41AM Tuesday August 28, 2007
By Tim Shadbolt

The big news in the South Island this week has been all about the good doctor from Nelson who is stuck in a cave.

With miners being regularly crushed all over the world it seems strange that intelligent, middle class "cavers" would deliberately put themselves in such obvious subterranean danger. To abseil down shafts and then slither along ever narrowing crevices and wade through underground streams. Why?

To a non-caver it seems like the classic case of a riddle wrapped up in an enigma. I admit I have visited the Waitomo Glow Worm Caves and when I was well paid to put myself in danger, I worked underground on the Manapouri Power Project, but otherwise I cannot think of a more uninviting environment to visit.

Perhaps there is some stunning beauty down there that us non-cavers are totally oblivious to. It could simply be a slower version of bungy jumping.

<a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=35&objectid=10460329">via NZ Herald</a>

[MUD]

Apparently these people don't know about the treasure, indian artifacts and tunnels that go thru to the other side of the mountain?

At least I'm always asked by non-cavers about these things!

[NZcaver]

Apparently these people don't know about the treasure, indian artifacts and tunnels that go thru to the other side of the mountain?

Indian artifacts are a little out of the ballpark (that article is from New Zealand)... but the buried treasure and mysterious hidden tunnels are certainly what first motivated me to try caving.


Incidentally, Tim Shadbolt (who wrote that article) is one of New Zealand's most interesting and lively characters. He's the mayor of the Invercargill, the southernmost city in New Zealand. Upon his initial election in 1993 he celebrated, much to some people's disgust, by towing his trusty concrete mixer behind the Mayoral car.