Deep, The Story of Stormy Pot 

Still my favourite caving film! Absolutely brilliant Kieran!

Can't help watching this over & over again. So many people I know, and I can feel it all as if I was there,the hope, the wonder, the pain & frustration. But its so cool to see all those faces & places again. I'll never forget my 97 Nettlebed trip with Andy Matthews & Dave Jackson. We abseiled into Blizzard Pot, snow all around,sheets of ice falling off the walls of the top pitch,then pitch after pitch (10 in all I think) down to the incredible expanse of the cavern they call Goodbye Yellow Brick Road ,then down the ever so stable looking (NOT) Funk Hole,through Diamond Alley,then down the Antlion pitch,and up the magnificent Hammer Heights to SoftRock Cafe. Then down via Salvation Hall to the bottom of Jacobs Well,through the Hinkle Horn Honking Holes & out the Nettlebed entrance. The size of the cave inside that mountain is truly staggering. And KUDOS to you bwave splorers. You guys are No Way Jo Bloggs's off the street. A very special breed indeed ! You wouldn't get me doing that stuff !

Best caving film ever! Can't wait to watch part 2. Thank you team

Thanks Kieran for a great trip through Stormy Pot - Nettlebed! I really like this video.. it communicates not only the extreme amount of effort, the nature of the cave.. but the best thing about caving, a team of great people!

I'm hooked, such a great story.

This project reflects the one that connected the Flint Ridge and Mammoth Cave systems in Kentucky. Took years, but eventually found success! Best wishes to those NZ cavers

hahaha the McDonald's rant at the end killed me 😂 what an amazing adventure, thanks so much for taking us along

These guy's are the real OGs to when going caving. The people who goes into caves today have the luxurys of making caving as to walking in the park.

Excellent video. Love the rant at the end and a brave man at 21:28, I diagnose a serious case of willy inversion! My best mate spent a year in NZ a few years back and joined a local club in order to get his fix of caving. Something he said about the experience has always stayed with me: "It's reassuring to know that wherever you go in the world, caving clubs are full of the same eccentrics, freaks and weirdos you get back home!"

Thanks for the upload. Excellent.

So interested in seeing the next long form piece you and your team of cracking crazy caving kiwis put together. Great video! I've watched it many times now and I consider it one of the best caving videos I've seen. Your work is much appreciated :)

Be so careful you guys, ☕🍯🍶 coffee yum ! & have fun ! 🎈🎈🎈

Well done guys.....loved the video, keep us updated

I appreciate this video of the underground. Whether or not you succeed in connecting the two cave systems your efforts have unveiled wonderful beauty and from my perspective that made it worth it. Wish I could have been with you all on these trips!

33:35 monologue = BRILLIANT. Great doco.

Really really good, rare quality of something so important and so often disregarded, caves and tombs are the new space, the new frontier, and I am glad you made this to share your travails.

Lovin your exploration down south there. Feeling all those emotions, as we do up here potting and exploring now here in Spain. We are 150m from connecting in Cueva Vallina to sistema la Vega. Great report, hope you connected the two systems.

Very good story, very inspiring! Regards from Hungary

I imagine the cavern at the bottom with crystal growth indicates no connection that way.

Thank you :-)

Excellent film and storytelling. I much enjoyed this. Well done! I look forward to learning more about any additional work that might have been done in the area. - Ray MacNeil, Toronto Caving Group, NSS# 66458

Brilliant!

Congratulations on making the connection Kieran The result of years of hard work & sheer determination, laced with lashings of passion & adrenaline .... not to mention courage (we keep telling ourselves its not stupidity,right ?) You guys have bigger balls than I ! Thats some way scary s...t you were getting into there. Even I would balk at some of that stuff ! I guess you'll have been in touch with Guinness World Records by now. Well, done, and congrats to you all .... Kieran McKay, Neil Silverwood, Troy Watson & Heidi Godfrey

✨ A brilliant film of a determined, supportive team of pioneering explorers. So impressive! ⚡

Now these men are cavers.

Caves are important! We need caves...

Hey there Kieren. So sorry Mahone and I dinged your oxygen tanks on your underwater surveying expedition in Waitomo. We were star struck amateurs. Regards, (Grandma) Dorinda.

Not sure when this was filmed so does anyone know if they ever did find a connection. What a great film. Please continue to take us exploring

Wait till the day you realize, that "caving" is simply finding a path through, around, and even under ancient MELTED mega structures.

GREAT!

O yes looks fun 🤩

wow why so low views this is incredible

That was awesome to watch! Hope the connection is made this year, aye?

Fingers crossed!!!!!!

Where do you relieve yourself in these camps? there can't be many good locations that don't somehow connect to the water you'll be traversing through, and the smell can't be great with the ventilation... Do you get much wind through deep caves, if any? 25:28 is absolutely terrifying. Awesome stuff, man. There really seems a specific type of person who gets in to spelunking, got that little tinge of crazy with their character haha! I thought of something that I personally thought was quite clever: calling the sport 'Grave diving'. Whaddaya think of that?

Really interesting. If you're staying within the cave where do you go for a number 2? do you also leave a lot of stuff down there or do you try and bring it back up?

What gear did you use to make this vid? We've tried to record expedition caving in Austria and I know how hard it is to do well. The quality, and the editing are both really impressive. And how far off was the survey at the connection? :-) Anyway - absolutely top job. I've spent years not finding bloody connections too.

When she chucked that rock down the hole, I thought haven't you watched the Lord of the rings?? Don't disturb the goblins and orcs

You dont camp on the ridge as that zephyr comes thru at 3am and dies at first light.

to never find the opening after all the years of looking would be soul destroying to walk away for me but imglad its been found in 2014 congrats guys just sad no video just slide pics

Awesome stuff! Seen the vid two times now. Whats the song at 4:15 btw?

In Nelson now: are you around tomorrow for a drink?

Awesome, did u ever manage to make the connection?

Should call it Mordor ftom the LOTR sence it's in New Zealand ,an you know

If you PAUSE the video AT 13.21 it looks like a the Entrance has a face. I would of called it Devils Face Entrance.

Not a bad spread for dinner

Beware of the Crawlers!

Amazing. Astronauts got nothing on these explorers.

could you not of moved the rocks in the big room and got people down there to clear it

“As you can see, we’ve lit 30 lbs of candles in order to burn up as much oxygen as possible.”

As I stopped ✋the 🛑 video at 8:50 I couldn’t help but think of John Jones that became firmly trapped / lodged deep inside the “NUTTY-PUTTY-CAVE In Utah. The reason I bring this up is because I’m not very far end of this video and already I’ve watched so many men barely just barely make it through some of these holes? Passages? I don’t really know what you call them. I just know that I’m not very far into this video, And already there are places where you men could have died. To me it’s simply not worth trying to prove anything and run up against the risk of getting stuck down inside a cave like John Jones was. Nutty Putty is a hydrothermal cave located west of Utah Lake in Utah County, Utah, United States. Formerly popular with cavers and renowned for its narrow passageways, Nutty Putty has been closed to the public since the 2009 John Jones horrible accident of him getting firmly lodged down inside of it. And some of America’s best rescuers and equipment at that time could not get him out. Short of breaking both-of-his-legs. Finally after much serious high-level discussions with these experts including with the family members the decision was made to give him a serious tranquilizer and break his legs. In a-nut-shell, knock-him-out. Then break his legs 🦵. Both legs. 🦵 🦵 in 2 places. John, was in medical school back in Virginia so he was kept abreast of everything they were discussing since he would have been a doctor within two years if they could’ve got him out. And of all things, he was in Medical School to become of all things, an Orthopedic Surgeon. There were several things concerning his situation that could not have been worse. First of all the passageway that he was stuck in was absolutely horrible. John was a sizable guy and by that I don’t mean he was fat he was it. But, he worked out and was muscular. He was 6 foot 2 inches tall and weighed a solid 190 pounds. The passageway he was stuck in, was barely wide enough for him to get his body head first down inside. Up to just past his waist. And then, to get father down inside the passageway which she thought he was in the right passageway but he wasn’t and he didn’t know this until it was too late. He’s sucked his chest, shoved forward, thinking he would drop on through. But, He didn’t. He became 100% fully, Firmly lodged. Then he exhaled and THAT. WAS. IT. STUCK. LIKE CHUCK. As cavers say here. He could not move left or right. Nor forwards or backwards. His left arm was extended forward. His right arm was firmly under his body. He was on his stomach. He was at an angle not quite 45°. And he was slowly suffocating to death. But at the time he didn’t know this and neither did anybody else. But, the angle he was at kept all the blood pumping down to his head and, it had a hard time pumping it back up, out of his head and back to the other parts of his body. He died in this position almost 24 hours later. By the time they made the decision with medical doctors back at a hospital in Salt Lake City and a major trauma center over the satellite phones and a prominent doctor had been flown in by helicopter to supervise the breaking of the legs and then to twist his body after it was oiled up and pull him out, by that time that it was a go, he was dead. And, since it was so dangerous of the locations that he was at, his family decided for safety sake to leave his body inside the cave and then cover the cave and cement it up. It’s John Jones own TOMB. His wife was there on-site through it all. Lori.

Awesome ! Brilliant work Kieran ! Great to see you're still into it. Still doing a wee bit myself too. Taking loads of nature pics as well. Should have a new book out soon. Check my latest uploads, & my pics on Flickr ( stevereekie.co.nz will get you there ) Stay safe buddy :)

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at 1:35 the explorer's helmet light is pointing directly at a statue head, the facial features are clearly visible

what a terrible slang.

Drop some rocks down some holes , yep, lets climb down there, nuts.