Honeycomb Hill Cave is in the South Island

South Island

The South Island is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand, the other being the more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman Sea, to the south and east by the Pacific Ocean...

 of New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

.

The Oparara River

Oparara River

The Oparara River is a river in the West Coast region of New Zealand's South Island.It is best known for the Oparara Basin Arches and flows through a section of the Honeycomb Hill Cave...

 flows though a section of the cave.

The cave was discovered in 1976 by the Buller Caving Group. Since then, 14km of passages have been mapped, and several important deposits of moa

Moa

The moa were eleven species of flightless birds endemic to New Zealand. The two largest species, Dinornis robustus and Dinornis novaezelandiae, reached about in height with neck outstretched, and weighed about ....

 bones have been discovered in the caves. In 2008 an extra 38 hectares of Kahurangi National Park

Kahurangi National Park

Kahurangi National Park is a national park in the northwest of the South Island of New Zealand. It was gazetted in 1996 and covers 4,520 km². It is the second largest of New Zealand's fourteen national parks...

was included in the Honeycomb Hill Caves Specially Protected Area to protect the cave system.

External links

• New Zealand Speleological Society (NZSS) (umbrella organisation of the New Zealand caving clubs)