Cave Rescue Practice

So I realize that I haven’t posted in a while.  Let me summarize what has happened since my last post. I jumped around from hostels for a while after I left Jane’s house. I finally settled on one I liked. The Paradiso hostel was a nice place. Twenty dollars a night with a hot tub and a sauna is hard to beat. I spent the entire week searching for jobs in Nelson and worrying about stuff at home. There were some very cool people at the Paradiso including a Kiwi named Karl. He was extremely fun and seemed like a copy of Steve Wells and Scott Rapier but from half way around the world. After not finding a job by Friday I figured I needed a vacation. The west coast was the place to be.

A SAREX is a caving practice rescue in New Zealand. On the west coast of the South Island there was a SAREX this weekend. The way they run their rescues here is very different from the way we do it in the US. Cavers work together in a more formal manner. The government gives the cavers money to get rescue gear. This gives them access to some very cool equipment.

I arrived on the west coast on Friday to meet the cavers. I was pretty stressed due to not finding a job but I found Jane at a pub. Normally this would have been an amazing stroke of luck except that there was only one pub in town. Punakaiki is a very small town with two streets. One of those streets is dirt and is right on the beach. The town it’s self is flanked on one side by the Tasman Sea and on the other by a large limestone bluff.

The West Coast

This was the first time I had seen the sun set over the ocean since I was a young child. Everyone in the hostel mentioned seeing the green flash. I had thought that that was only something from Pirates of the Caribbean We all went out on the deck to stare at the sun for a bit. Right as it was about to happen some clouds obscured the sun; “Oh well” I thought, it was still a pretty sunset.

Some of the cavers and I stayed in a small hostel on the beach. There was a person named Carmine from Canada staying in the hostel. A bunch of cavers and I went to the pub and she tagged along. We had a few drinks and talked about the rescue to come in the morning.

The next morning I woke up to find a bunch of people around the kitchen table. They were all discussing techniques and rescues that had happened in the past. At 9:30 we were supposed to saddle up and head to a Department of Conservation hut for a briefing by the incident commander as to the Scenario. Since this was on the West Coast the cavers from that area were in charge. We took a few cars and went up to the cave area. To my surprise there was a large orange bus that said “Search and Rescue.” That money coming from the government seemed as if it was being put to good use.

At first I didn’t have any gear. All I had was the stuff I wore under my suit. I was sitting up at the surface for a long time looking listless when Alice noticed me. She came over and asked what I was doing. I told her of my plight and she started tasking me as she could. Then I was rescued. A large caver came and said he would lend me all of his gear. I got it on and went in on crew 11, which was tasked with basic stretcher handling. Once I got underground I was attached to the Hayphone team. This was a radio that worked through the moisture in the rock to send a signal to another of it’s kind on the surface.

Outside The Rescue Bus at Punakaiki: By Alice Shanks

We dragged the stretcher until the people on the surface called in and told us to come out. The cave, Xanadu as it was called, was a nice little cave but it was known to flood. We made our way out but there were many buffoon sumps to endure. This, for you non-cavers is a group of cavers getting caught in a bottle neck.

We left the cave and all met outside. As cavers are apt to do, we all had a beer on the outside of the cave to congratulate ourselves. We all got back in the cars and left the scene with the victims driving their own vehicle out. I was happy to have participated. Sitting on the surface with nothing to do would have been miserable. It was nice to be useful. It also made me feel like I was on equal terms with everyone around me. Being a strong young man makes it hard to let other people (even when they’re just as strong as you) carry a stretcher. We all went to the only pub in town and got a beer and socialized. There were people from all over the south island there who meshed perfectly. It was weird to thing that this was 90 per cent of the operational cavers on the south island. It was about the same size as a caver party pack home.

The next day I got to drive back to Christchurch to find a job. I went back via Arthur’s Pass. At first the drive felt like I imagine costal California to feel. Then I broke into the mid west and finally the Rockies but all in the space of an hour. Driving up through the pass I was reminded of the Rohan scenes from Lord of the Rings. I thought that maybe some of them were actually filmed here.

The entire time I was looking for a Kia. This is a mischievous type of parrot that is known for tearing up cars. I had heard they were annoying but were also strikingly beautiful. Farmers used to shoot them but now they are protected. They have been known to bother livestock to the point of picking wool out of sheep. Sadly I didn’t see any.

What I did see were two people trying to hitchhike. I’ve been trained since being a little kid not to pick up hitchhikers but these were two backpackers up on the mountain and it looked as if rain was coming. They smiled as I pulled over. I noticed a familiarity as one of them said hi. I asked where she was from and she replied with Indiana and the guy said Colorado. That was a welcome relief. Hearing an American accent out here is kind of like reaching an oasis in the desert. I don’t miss them too much but when I hear them it feels good. They asked where I was going and I said Christchurch. They were more than a little excited at the prospect of a ride all the way home. We drove off the mountain talking about foot ball and the states in general. The girl in the back fell asleep almost immediately. They had just been hiking all around the hills in that region so I could understand. I was grateful for someone to talk to because I was a little tired myself.

We broke out of the hills and onto the Canterbury Plains. In the distance I could see the port hills. Behind us I could see what definitely looked like rain breaking across the mountains. I was glad I had picked them up. The hitchhikers said they had been considering setting up the tent again for shelter. I dropped them off at the University of Canterbury and went on my way. All the stress of finding a job flooded back but this time I had someone who could relate to my situation. The American I was going to meet about getting a job had been in my position before and was happy to help. I checked into a cheap hostel, which was by far the shittiest one I’d been at. I’d sooner sleep in the van than go back to that place. I got up the next morning refreshed and ready to go out and get a job in wasteland of Christchurch. It would be a nice city again someday, but that was a long time in the future. Hopefully I can help.