Trip Leader: Ken Banner

Trip Report by: Casey McDowell

On Sunday morning we went up to the Gray River and didn’t even try to cross that as it was way too full, so we did the Waipuna Cave trip instead. The caves were down a river, it was so deep that our truck had to have some building wrap put over the grill. The first cave was long and very dark it took about 3 minutes to drive through, up the river further there was another cave which took about 1 minute to drive through, it was really amazing.

Further on up the river there was a cool waterfall which was like a free carwash! Joe drove under it and water filled up in the deck of the truck. We carried on up the river and stopped for lunch because that was as far as we could go. Everyone turned around and headed back down the river again, meanwhile my friend Kristy and I had started walking back down the river to the first long cave. Just as we got there, around the corner came Ken and Jackson in their 4x4. Kristy and I wanted to walk thought the caves but we were too chicken, so Ken put his lights on and we walked along in front of the truck, it was really cool, we screamed when Ken turned his lights off in middle of the cave!! At the end of the cave we caught a ride on the back of Waide and Sandy’s truck and that made us scream and laugh some more ( I think their ears are probably still ringing), after that we got back onto our truck and drove the rest of the way down the river fast thought the water.


On the way back to Reefton after the caves most of us call into the Waiuta old goldmining village, no one lives there now but it must have been really busy in its time, it had schools and a hospital, you name it, it had it, and that was the end of our trip down to Reefton, it was so fun, I can’t wait until next time.


Thank you Ken and Richard for a cool weekend