NEW LIMESTONE CAVE FOUND

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29339, 19 October 1960, Page 10

NEW LIMESTONE CAVE FOUND

Waitomo Site To Be Scenic Reserve “The Press” Special Service HAMILTON, October 17. An unusual and interesting job which fell to the Hamilton office of the Lands and Survey Department recently was the arrangement of the purchase of a scenic reserve of the limestone cave known as “Hollow Hill,” about nine miles north-west of Waitomo Caves. Writing in “Landscape,” the staff magazine of the department, Mr D. Blake, of Hamilton, says that “Hollow Hill” was discovered in 1957 by a party of speleologists from the Hamilton Tomo Group. “It was known locally that a stream disappeared into a hill. By following this stream which came up into the open air and then went underground again and by wriggling through a tight passage, which caused the explorers to go underwater at times, the group came out into an impressive cavern,” says Mr Blake.

“Named the ‘Dominion Monarch,’ it could accommodate the overseas ship of the same name. The cavern is 792 ft long by 260 ft wide and I'OOft high, and is packed with magnificent pure white limestone formations.

“In the main grotto slender stalactite ‘straws’ are encrusted in thousands hanging in a fantastic curtain from the roof.

■ “Completely transparent, they are up to 10ft in length. The bed of the cave is a maze of stalagmites in impressive shapes and in the purest white; some are in the form of miniature trees with ‘leaves’ up to a foot in length tinged with pink. “In addition, there are side grottos such as the "Castle” Grotto, filled with startling limestone formation of coral-like growth peculiar to the cave. Another unusual feature is an old fossil stream system with a huge petrified cascade issuing from a dry gallery,” says Mr Blake. “Preservation of the bush cover on the hill in which the cave lies is vital to the continued life of the limestone formations below. "The day may well come when the access problem will be solved and the cave at Hollow Hill will be a scenic attraction as well-known as Waitomo,’’ he concludes.