"Deep in a valley in the New Zealand wilderness, clear cold water rushes across moss-covered rocks. In the morning the mist rises up and lays across the valley. In the afternoon sun glints on the Pearce River, shafts of light filter through native tree canopy. It is a fecund, primeval place. The water has flowed down through tunnels in Mount Arthur, in South Island's north-west, to meet at the Pearce Resurgence at its base."
"You enter this cave that just seems to swallow you as you go into it. It's black. You come to this abyssal drop which goes over an edge and drops down to 100 metres in depth. And then it just keeps going. Most people's most fundamental fear would be of being underground and underwater with a finite amount of air but to Harris underwater caves contain great beauty."
"To him these hostile places are mysterious hydrological puzzles waiting to be solved. Each cave is different and uniquely formed, he tells the Guardian. It's an extraordinary world down there. This feeling of swimming into a new passage which you are the first person to lay eyes upon is very addictive and very exciting. It's very hard to describe but it gets into your system The more you do it the more you need to do it."
Clear cold water flows through tunnels in Mount Arthur to emerge at the Pearce Resurgence, a calm-looking pond above one of the largest, deepest cave networks on Earth. The resurgence sits in a fecund valley where mist rises and shafts of light filter through native canopy. The subterranean system contains abyssal drops exceeding 100 metres and complex passages that continue far below the surface. Anaesthetist and cave diver Dr Richard Harris finds the environment intimidating yet beautiful, viewing caves as mysterious hydrological puzzles. Harris describes swimming into new passages as addictive, and recalls a 2007 dive with Rick Stanton and Dave Apperley when his suit flooded.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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