Cave Creek

The Taurus major submergence and Cave Creek resurgence are interesting limestone formations in dense bush country, inland from Punakaiki on the West Coast, where water has played a part in forming the land.

A very human event occurred deep in this bush clad canyon on April 28, 1995. Fourteen people lost their lives when a Department of Conservation viewing platform fell thirty metres into the creek. It was poorly built and totally overloaded. Eighteen people, a park ranger and students at Tai Poutini Polytech's outdoor education course, had climbed on the new platform on a field trip to view the geology of the area. 14 were killed and the other 4 seriously injured.

A commission of enquiry by Judge Graham Noble revealed what many New Zealanders already knew, that the Department of Convservation was badly under resourced during the 1990s. In this tragic case, it meant that not only was the platform poorly designed, but it was not even built to the design, bolts were left out, a counterbalancing set of concrete steps was not attached, and the sign warning that ten persons only could use the platform was simply absent.

The Conservation employee who died here was Steve O'Dea, a popular and hardworking ranger who had recently transferred from Weheka/Fox Glacier due to overwork and burnout. After the enquiry, his boss, the Department of Conservation’s West Coast regional conservator, resigned. The Minister of Conservation, Denis Marshall, resigned in May 1996.

Also as a result of the enquiry, 15 of DOC’s 106 viewing platforms were rebuilt. Later some compensation was afforded to the families of the deceased.

You can walk to Cave Creek. The track, from Bullock Creek, is open and there are steps down into the canyon, not a platform. Caving in the Xanadu cave system is not safe. There is also a memorial here.