Storm leads to deep cave discovery

Cave explorers sheltering from a storm in New Zealand have stumbled across what may prove to be the country’s deepest cave, a report said.

Outdoor adventure instructor Kieran McKay and four others took shelter in what they thought was a small cave when a storm hit in the Kahurangi National Park in the north of South Island, the Nelson Mail said.

In the back of the cave, which they have named Stormy Pot, they discovered an unknown cave system which they followed for 2.5 kilometres and to a depth of 470 metres.

“It’s got potential to go to over 1000m (deep),” McKay was quoted as saying.

“We’re pretty excited. We had to turn back because we were at the top of a 10-metre waterfall and we didn’t have the ropes to go down.” New Zealand’s deepest mapped cave system is the Ellis Basin system at just over 1,000 metres deep and 33 kilometres long.

McKay, who has been caving in the area for 25 years, said he believed the new system could connect with another nearby, and reach to a depth of 1,200 metres.

The world’s deepest cave, measured from its highest entrance to its lowest point, is the Voronya Cave in Abkhazia, Georgia, which has been explored to 2,191 metres.