Harwoods Hole

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From the Canaan Road end a 45 minute walk leads to Harwoods Hole and a dramatic lookout on the rim of the steep sided Gorge Creek. There is also a spectacular view of the sheer rock walls surrounding Harwoods Hole, which support a surprising number of plants.

The first section of the walk is over private land, through a rather eerie beech forest that has had its understorey vegetation browsed out by stock. Visual relief is provided by round shallow depressions filled with bright green moss or water, indicating the location of old sink-holes that once diverted the surface water of this gentle valley. The valley gradually narrows and the track passes over large marble blocks, which can be greasy if wet.

Harwoods Hole is a remarkable and impressive chasm - some 50m across, with towering 80m walls that nearly encircle the opening. The verticle drop is 176m, making it the 'longest drop' in New Zealand. Thousands of years ago a waterfall plunged into the hole. Now the surface streams from the Canaan basin flow into several sinkholes where the marble and granite meet, and then through a system of underground passages.

 

 

Be aware this is a dangerous area. Signs warning of treacherous terrain and brochures explaining the features and risks of Harwood's Hole provide warning of the dangers. Please take care when visiting this area. Do not throw stones down the hole.

Harwood's Hole has been the site of a number of dramatic rescues, including the "Operation Long Drop" rescue on March 25, 1995, which involved the lowering of a doctor down to a Christchurch caver who had badly fractured his leg. The doctor stayed with the man administering morphine to him for 10 hours.

In January 2004, a group of five cavers, three men and two women made up of two New Zealanders, an American, a German and an Israeli, reached the bottom of the cave, but then got lost on the walk out.
The American man climbed four hours to the top of Harwood's Hole to get help.

In July 2002, rescue teams found two men fit and well after they became lost in the cave in a site known as Shorty's Terror.

 

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Facts and Footnotes

There is a great lookout track just above Harwood's Hole with views across the Takaka Valley and township and out to the Kahurangi National Park and Cobb Valley. Canaan Downs is also famous for its spectacular outdoor music festival held in a natural amphitheatre in Canaan valley every New Years Éve.

Discovering Harwoods Hole

In 1957 a group of North Island cavers ventured south to Tākaka hill near Nelson, where a farmer led them to a hole he had never dared to enter. The cavers were ecstatic, estimating the maximum width to be 60 metres, and the depth 200 metres. They named it Harwoods Hole, after the original landowner.

On Christmas Day 1958, cavers were lowered into the abyss on a winch. David May, a schoolboy, was the first to go down, in a parachute harness with a steel seat. At a depth of 183 metres his feet touched bottom. Other members then explored 800 metres of passages.

A year later, the cavers returned, seeking a link to Starlight Cave, at the head of The Gorge Creek in the Tākaka Valley. They placed a green dye (fluorescein) in the stream at the bottom of Harwoods Hole, and it emerged four hours later in The Gorge Creek. Using explosives they blasted a stalactite block, allowing three cavers to make the first through trip. At 357 metres, Harwoods Hole (connected to Starlight Cave) was at the time the country’s deepest known cave.

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