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.