Feb 05 2013
Clifden – Te Anau Trip
2-3/2/2013. Trip. Clifden Caves, Te Anau, Lake Henry, Kepler Rainbow Reach to Moturau. – Leader: Heb.
Heb pick us up at 7.30 on Saturday and drove us in the Mosgiel RSA Courtesy Van via a Cafe stop at Gore, Nightcaps, and Ohai to the stop pictured below for lunch.
Lunch at Clifden Swing Bridge (Ken pic and caption)
Then it was up to the Clifden Caves carpark and the start of the underground expedition.
Intrepid Cavers (Peter pic, Ken caption)
Click Clifden-Caves for DoC article. Its “Activity” section describes the actual experience.
Inside cave showing direction maker. (Ken pic and caption)
The silver markers kept us on the safe route. Yellow ones warned us of sidetracks to avoid. The route involved quite a bit of stepping over, crawling under and squeezing through.
And then we arrived at the large deep Moon Pool which could be navigated only by stepping around its left side on a narrow , sloping but nice and grippy, ledge. However immediately prior to beginning the ledge experience, Heb slipped into and jammed in a much smaller narrow pothole on the track just before it, (one he had never noticed before) and it took all Ken’s strength in one arm to hold onto him and enable him to eventually lever his wet self out. A sobering moment.
Only two then took to the ledge skirting the pool to its further side and on out, the way incorporating several very helpful longish up-and-down fixed ladders en route.
The impressive Ians
The other three more prudently (discretely? wisely?) turned back.
Back at the van, with Heb dried out and into a change of clothes, it was on to the Te Anau Sea Scouts Hall at Te Anau for the overnight stay.
Cup-o-tea in Te Anau scout hall (Ken pic and caption)
An evening stroll was a circumnavigation of lake Henry nearby.
Evening walk to Lake Henry (Ken pic and caption)
Later it was Petanque for some; later bed for all.
Next morning, after breakfast, we drove to and walked the Kepler from Rainbow Reach to Moturau Hut.
On the Kepler Track (Ken pic and caption)
View from below Moturau Hut (Jill pic)
Moss-lined part of track on return
We returned from Te Anau via Mossburn and Gore, arriving back at 6.00 p.m. Thanks to Heb from the other six of us for a well-organized weekend trip – Ian