Previously, in our travels, we’ve heard that Kiwis have named some things in order to actually keep tourists away. For example, we enjoyed a nice lunch at 
Despite the small town, there were plenty of options to explore the caves. We’ve seen our fair share of caves before, so we didn’t just want a typical run through with a brief glimpse at the shining larvae. We decided to add a little adventure with some black water rafting or “rafting” underground through the dark caves. The word “rafting” is used loosely. We were actually just tubing.
After a change into our wetsuits and a quick orientation on the equipment we all got to try our hand at jumping into the water. Later we would be jumping down waterfalls by headlamp, so for safety, you could see why they would throw us off a short pier first. Unfortunately, Jen’s first attempt didn’t go very well and she was a little hesitant the rest of the day.
The past few days have been very rainy. The good news was that all the rain made for excellent conditions in the caves. We could tell as soon as we got underground that the water was really flowing. We had to navigate a few narrow passages, one where the high water level almost reached the ceiling. As the tour group gathered after at the end of a tubing section, our guides instructed us to turn out our headlamps. In the darkness, the blue pinpoints of light from our glowing friends took over the room.
It took about an hour to make our way through the caves. Jen even got her courage up and tried one of the waterfall jumps without further incident. The highlight was definitely the massive caverns where we could just float past in the blue light of the worms. By the time we reached daylight, we were getting pretty cold and we were ready for our complimentary soup and bagel.
After the tour, we headed back across the street (we said it was a small town) to our hostel to get ready for the afternoon. We didn’t have much planned, but our tour came with free admission to the Waitomo Museum of Caves. We decided to take the 3 minute drive down the street to check it out. As you might imagine, there’s not much to it, but we did enjoy the Kid’s Cave Crawl. Chris made it through without getting stuck. The ride home provided the day’s strangest moment.
Not much to say, just enjoy the video!
No idea why they had American Gladiator gear, but we couldn't resist!
The view from above.
4 comments:
i hope you snagged one of those cows...
Those cows wouldn't have been so haughty if you were in the Cavalier. That car knew how to handle livestock on the road.
You know, I am all proud of Chris for making it through the kiddie caves, but how many times a week do you think they have to call the fire department to pull grown men out of that thing? They probably have a task force.
Underground rafting and livestock dodging?! I can't believe after all of the fun stuff we did over the past three weeks, there are still new fun things we hadn't experienced. See, I promised I'd comment once I got back to the States.
I agree with Tom; the Cavalier would have been much better suited for driving through cows (and I bet one would have jumped up on her hind legs to get a close look at Chris through the open window).
I remember you telling me that you were going to blog about how much the glow worm caves sucked so I didn't feel bad about missing them; what gives?! They seem pretty awesome (despite the maggots). I guess the boiling mud was alright. And all that other stuff we got to do was cool too :)
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