New Zealand Mike Dickison · CC BY 4.0
The descent
The entrance, at 48 m.
The real relief above Te Ana – The Caves, measured on the Copernicus model every 30 m, and the cave going down at the same vertical scale.
The depth is the one published by those who explored it; the shape of the galleries is a sketch, not a survey. No depth has been published for this cave yet.
48m
Entrance altitude
published (Wikidata)
13°C
Inside, all year
the yearly average outside, at the entrance
101m
Rock above
the highest point within 1.5 km
Inside and outside
13 °C inside, all year.
Deep inside, a cave keeps the average temperature of the year outside: about 13 °C here, in January and in August. In January the afternoon reaches 20 °C at the entrance, 7 °C warmer than inside: take a jacket.
- 20°14°Jan
- 20°15°Feb
- 19°14°Mar
- 16°12°Apr
- 14°10°May
- 12°8°Jun
- 11°7°Jul
- 11°8°Aug
- 13°8°Sep
- 15°9°Oct
- 16°11°Nov
- 18°13°Dec
Outside: afternoon and night averages for 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) brought to the altitude of the entrance. Inside: the yearly average, which deep parts of a cave keep. Near the entrance it follows the weather a little.
Cave in New Zealand
Te Ana – The Caves is a cave in New Zealand. The entrance is at 48 m.
Getting there.
- Wild cave: only with caving equipmentNo paths or lights inside. Go only with a caving club or a qualified guide.
- Kaikoura Lookoutnearest viewpoint · 2.8 km from the entrance
- Woodbourne Airport (BHE)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 101 km in a straight lineCar hire at NSN airport (Nelson)Discover Cars · sponsored link↗
Plan the visit
Guided tours, a bed nearby, a car.
Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.
From above.
The ground above the cave, with the relief shaded, the line of the section and what people have mapped around the entrance.
N
1.5 km
Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 (EOX, CC BY 4.0), 6.0 × 6.0 km, north up. The line is the section above. Points © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Around the entrance.
- 1other cave entrances within 3 kmMāori Leap Caves
- 2viewpoints within 3 kmKaikoura Lookout
- 20car parks within 2 km
- 3information boards and visitor centres within 3 km
- 1bus stops within 2 km
- 17campsites within 8 kmDonegal, Kaikoura, Pohowera (South Bay) and 14 more
- 73hotels and guesthouses within 8 kmMediterranean Motel Kaikoura, Donegal House, Barnacle Bill's and 70 more
- 21restaurants and cafés within 3 km
- springs within 2 km
- sinkholes within 3 km
- caving clubs and spots within 15 km
- marked hiking routes within 3 km
- climbing crags within 3 km
- named waterfalls within 4 km
Counted in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit, around the entrance. A low number may just mean nobody has mapped it yet. © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).
In our other atlases
What else is around Te Ana – The Caves.
The river at the entrance, the waterfalls, the lakes, the mountains and volcanoes above, the canyons, beaches and islands nearby — from our other atlases.
Lakeyas1 lakes within 10 km
Peakyas3 mountains within 10 kmFigures from the sister sites' databases (Wikidata, HydroATLAS, GeoNames, NOAA, OpenStreetMap). Links open when each site is online.
Month by month
The weather outside, at the entrance.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Afternoon | 20 | 20 | 19 | 16 | 14 | 12 | 11 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 16 | 18 |
| Afternoon | 20 | 20 | 19 | 16 | 14 | 12 | 11 | 11 | 13 | 15 | 16 | 18 |
| Night | 14 | 15 | 14 | 12 | 10 | 8 | 7 | 8 | 8 | 9 | 11 | 13 |
| Rain (mm) | 49 | 48 | 55 | 69 | 63 | 81 | 74 | 65 | 56 | 69 | 55 | 57 |
| Rainy days | 9 | 8 | 9 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 13 | 14 | 12 | 12 | 10 | 11 |
| Sun hours/day | 8.8 | 8.3 | 7.3 | 5.9 | 5.0 | 4.0 | 4.5 | 5.5 | 6.5 | 7.6 | 8.6 | 8.1 |
| Snow on the ground (cm) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Afternoon | Afternoon | Night | Rain (mm) | Sun hours/day | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 20 | 20 | 14 | 49 | 8.8 |
| Feb | 20 | 20 | 15 | 48 | 8.3 |
| Mar | 19 | 19 | 14 | 55 | 7.3 |
| Apr | 16 | 16 | 12 | 69 | 5.9 |
| May | 14 | 14 | 10 | 63 | 5.0 |
| Jun | 12 | 12 | 8 | 81 | 4.0 |
| Jul | 11 | 11 | 7 | 74 | 4.5 |
| Aug | 11 | 11 | 8 | 65 | 5.5 |
| Sep | 13 | 13 | 8 | 56 | 6.5 |
| Oct | 15 | 15 | 9 | 69 | 7.6 |
| Nov | 16 | 16 | 11 | 55 | 8.6 |
| Dec | 18 | 18 | 13 | 57 | 8.1 |
Averages 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) for a cell about 55 km wide, brought to the altitude of the entrance (48 m) with the standard lapse rate. Not a forecast.
Photographs
Inside and around.
Recent years
Wet years, dry years.
Rain of each month as a share of the 1991–2020 average. A dry year means a lower river and hotter rock; a wet one, more water in the gorge.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 20% | 98% | 205% | 20% | 75% | 140% | 92% | 52% | 113% | 89% | 226% | 103% |
| 2021 | 46% | 32% | 81% | 56% | 217% | 133% | 65% | 175% | 102% | 84% | 62% | 252% |
| 2022 | 68% | 394% | 113% | 37% | 106% | 86% | 334% | 175% | 138% | 63% | 207% | 168% |
| 2023 | 130% | 362% | 234% | 109% | 110% | 117% | 273% | 85% | 140% | 63% | 132% | 94% |
| 2024 | 102% | 79% | 56% | 48% | 100% | 137% | 106% | 136% | 106% | 143% | 63% | 179% |
| 2025 | 140% | 77% | 222% | 151% | 128% | 145% | 94% | 80% | 61% | 88% | 110% | 118% |
130% or more: wet month 70% or less: dry month
Caves nearby.
Te Ana – The Caves
New Zealand
- —Depth
- —Galleries
- 48 mEntrance altitude
- 13 °CInside, all year
Bulmer Cavern
New Zealand · 134 km
- —Depth
- —Galleries
- 1,450 mEntrance altitude
- 4 °CInside, all year
Moncks Cave
New Zealand · 148 km
- —Depth
- —Galleries
- 28 mEntrance altitude
- 12 °CInside, all year
Nettlebed Cave
New Zealand · 151 km
- —Depth
- —Galleries
- 720 mEntrance altitude
- 9 °CInside, all year
Where these figures come from
| Name, type, published depth and length, visitors | Wikidata (Q32268710) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| The relief above, the entrance altitude, the section and the 3D model | Copernicus DEM GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA |
| Climate | NASA POWER, 1991–2020 |
| Entrances, springs, sinkholes, opening hours and what is around | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
| Rivers, waterfalls, lakes, mountains, canyons, beaches and islands nearby | Coastya, Lakeyas, Peakyas, Cascadyas, Islandyas, Riveryas |
Every figure is an average, an estimate or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.
The family
Do you prefer beaches, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, islands, rivers, canyons, caves, dark skies, viewpoints, birdwatching or forests?
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