New Zealand’s deepest hole

Henry Harwood, who opened up tracts of land around the Golden Bay area, is known for giving his name to the deepest vertical shaft in New Zealand - Harwoods Hole.
He and John Horton and Thomas Manson opened up the Canaan Downs area, joining the Tasman and Golden Bay area and found the hole.
It was not immediately explored. But later was found to be over 357 metres or 1230 ft deep.
Like all things mysterious, people wanted to have a look.
Geological history suggests it was formed from stream runoff - basically the water flowed down a valley to the lowest point and formed the hole.
Subsequently the stream has changed course and water no longer runs into the hole, rather it trickles in, creating calcite deposits.
In it is the beautiful Starlight cave, discovered when explorers were looking for the subterranean stream in the hole.
Harwood’s family was some of the earliest pioneers of the area and descendants still live and farm there.
It was in 1960 during the first real exploration of the hole that tragedy struck.
Peter Lambert was part of the team completing the first descent in 1958/59.
Auckland engineer and keen caver Richard Scott, along with a team - including Peter Lambert - created a rope and engineer method to lower people into Harwoods Hole.
The seven-strong team set up the engine and also sent down a telephone wire for communication.
The first to be lowered was Dave Kershaw who finally radioed to the top that he had reached the bottom.
The next day three more of the team headed down, Lambert was with them. They were able to explore some of the extraordinary structures in the hole before they headed out.
The next year Lambert signed up 21 other keen explorers for another look.
They successfully discovered the hole was connected to the Starlight cave discovered nearby.
But tragedy hit as Lambert was being winched back up. With no warning huge chunks of rock came away, smashing into Lambert. He was winched out but died before any help could arrive.
A memorial to him was built at the bottom of Harwoods Hole and his hard hat placed on top.
Henry Harwood died on April 22, 1927 and is buried in Rototai Cemetery in Takaka.