The deep­est cave sys­tem in the South­ern Hemi­sphere is in the Nel­son hin­ter­land. How do we know this? Because Kier­an Mckay went in and explored it. One of Red Bull’s Explorers of the Cen­tury, he’ll be speak­ing about his exper­i­ences and intro­du­cing a film about his cave explor­a­tions on Sat­urday even­ing at Onslow Col­lege.

“The Cave Con­nec­tion – Into The Unknown” brings view­ers along with Kier­an Mckay, one of New Zeal­and’s most accom­plished cavers, and his team of adven­tur­ers. Their almost impossible goal: to dis­cov­er the deep­est cave in the South­ern Hemi­sphere by find­ing a con­nec­tion between two daunt­ing cave sys­tems, facing haz­ards like the sud­den inrush of water and a total lack of com­mu­nic­a­tion with the world out­side.

(Please excuse the some­what cheesy voi­ceover on that trail­er!)

The Cave Con­nec­tion has been shown at quite a few out­doors and moun­tain Film Fest­ivals and has picked up a small swag of awards along the way, includ­ing

  • 2014 – Trento Film Fest­iv­al (Jury Award)
  • 2014 – New Zea­l­and Moun­tain Film Fest­iv­al (Best Film on Adven­tur­ous, Sports & Life­styles)
  • 2014 – Tyr­olean Inde­pend­ent Film Fest­iv­al (Best Doc­u­ment­ary)
  • 2014 – Torello Moun­tain Film Fest­iv­al (Jury Award)
  • 2014 – 32nd Mil­ano Inter­na­tion­al Ficts Fest (Doc­u­ment­ary – Team Sport Award)
  • 2014 – Kath­mandu Inter­na­tion­al Moun­tain Film Fest­iv­al (Best Inter­na­tion­al Doc­u­ment­ary)
  • 2015 – Moun­tain Film Fest­iv­al Domzale (Best Film Moun­tain, Sports and Adven­ture)

And to have the lead­er of the exped­i­tion on hand to talk about his exper­i­ences and answer your ques­tions makes this a must-attend, yet very well-priced, event.

The details:

  • Sept 19th 7pm, Onslow Col­lege Hall
  • Length: approx­im­ately 1 hour
  • Adult $15; Stu­dent $10
  • Door sales or Onslow Col­lege Office, 478 8189
  • Pro­ceeds to Onslow Col­lege’s Get2Go Team, who, hav­ing won the South­ern North Island region­al event, will be com­pet­ing in the Nation­als on Great Bar­ri­er Island in Decem­ber.