Cathedral Cave

Cathedral Cave can be found south of Papatowai in the Catlins (that's east of Invercargill). It is accessible only at low tide. It's very popular and there's a large car park to cater for all the tourists. It costs $5 per person as you need to pass through Maori land to get to the beach. 

After about a 20-minute walk through beautiful bush to get to the beach, there's another 10 minutes along the beach to get to the cave. The walk descends down to the beach, so coming back is all uphill.

Arriving at the beach.

You're given an information sheet when you pay at the car park. Info from that sheet about the cave: Total passage length is 199 metres. Currently, this is one of the 30 longest known sea caves in the world. Sea caves are formed by the action of the waves eroding or collapsing the rock.

This is the first entrance. Just magnificent. The cave originally formed as two separate caves, which later joined at the back.

Looking up near at the entrance.

Although the roof looks lower here, its height varies inside.

A lot of people view this cave every day. It's flooded at high tide, so note the number of footprints in the sand. The low tide viewing time is an approximate window of about three hours, and there is a different exit (the second cave entrance).

We brought a torch, which helped us see into the darker places. This was the end of the cave.

Looking back towards the entrance of the cave where we had entered . . .

. . . and this was the second cave entrance, where we exited.

"Cathedral Cave is formed in resistant Jurassic sandstone", says the leaflet. "The sedimentary layers  are tilted slightly to the northeast (into the cliff). Stresses acting on the rocks when they were buried created near-vertical fractures, perpendicular to the sedimentary layers. It is these fractures that the waves exploit to form the cave."

Outside, looking back at the second entrance.

We could not get further around easily as the tide had cut us off. However, Dave decided to wade through the water to check it out. He told me there were more caves around the corner.

Here you can see the two entrances to the cave.

Then the walk back along the beach . . .

. . . and through the bush/forest. The walk was really part of the attraction. Just beautiful.

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