Caving and Geysers - Waitomo, New Zealand
Waitomo, New Zealand
Caving with the Legendary Black Water Rafting Company in Waitomo ticked every box when it comes to excitement. Basically a bit of an underground self propelled roller coaster. We started by abseiling 35 metres down a vertical drop cave shaft which is in the Ruakuri cave. Having been kitted out with wet suits and a harness we had a quick training session before lowering ourselves down into the darkness. One by one our group of eight and two guides went down. The entrance was wide but you could not touch the side with your feet, then it narrowed a lot before opening up again some ten metres down where you could build up some more speed. Not quite in the style of 007 but we made our way down safely. Nothing like easing you into the adventure!!! The cave was pitch black, with just us and our head torches. After some introductions and a short walk in the cave we were told to turn off our head torches before one by one we were to zip wire down a tunnel. Probably lasting about 5 seconds you zipped in complete darkness. Amazingly at the finish you hung there and looked up to see hundreds on glow worms illuminating the cave like stars in the sky. We then were due to do some tubing (sitting in a inner tube) as we went down the fairly calm river below. We had some hot chocolate before taking the plunge. This involved standing on a two meter ledge and jumping with your tubes into the river. Bare in mind you can't actually see the river and you have no judgment of distance other than looking along the cave walls to try and judge! Pretty scary! The cold water, which was 10-12 degrees, was a sharp shock to the system! We pulled ourselves along a rope in our tubes into the depths of the cave. Here there were thousands of glow worms and we had a short science lesson to discover that they are actually 'Canabalistic, shagging, illuminated-**** maggots' but I guess that would not attract too many tourists so Glow Worms is what they call them. We floated back along the river, well actually Kevin pulled the rest of the group as they floated, until we got to narrower caves. Here we walked through waters that were up to neck high. The trickiest section was walking through what they affectionately named 'drunken alley', trying to stay on your feet as you waded through the water up to your waist without tripping up on the different heights of hidden rock in the river. We had to crouch down at times as the tunnels got lower and eventually had to crawl through one tunnel on our bellies. The guides obviously then felt bored and made us all climb onto a ledge and do belly flops into the water for the camera. As we neared the end and three hours later, we had two waterfalls in the cave to climb. They were both technical climbs without ropes and with water gushing over you. The guides gave direction and we made our way up them safely. As we came out into the burning sun above ground we felt truly awesome! A great adventure with adrenaline all the way. No rest for us as usual as we made the three hour drive to Rotorua to see the active Gesyers and learn about some Maori culture. We were lucky that the giant Potuhura Gesyer was active while we were there and the area was like another planet, with steaming landscapes and boiling mud pools. The smell was very potent too with all the sulphur!!! It was an interesting tour as the guide told us about the Polynesian history of the Maori people. We also saw a Kewi bird to make sure we kept our nature trail going. Then it was another 3 hours drive to Auckland to get a few hours sleep before our flight tomorrow to Sydney and then Bangkok. Tip for the day: You can do anything when it comes to adventure, just make sure someone else goes first and checks it all works!!!