Waitomo caves

I had to be in the central North Island last week for work anyway, so I flew up a few days early and spent the weekend exploring. I went to the Waitomo caves to see the glowworms. There was a tame option available, rafting through the caves on a big rubber raft with a bunch of other people, but there was also an adventure option. Guess which one I chose?

Here is the group I went with. We're all looking so fresh and eager at the beginning of the trip.



We started by abseiling (a fancy word for rappelling) 40 meters into the cave. They asked for volunteers to go first, so I volunteered (mostly because I was kind of nervous and just wanted to get it over with). It was pretty fun. The cave entrance was narrow in some places and it was hard to go backwards without being able to see where I was going, but I didn't get stuck. (Whew!)



After everyone got into the cave, we walked through some other caverns looking at the glowworms. I didn't know they would look so much like stars. I thought the whole cave would glow or something. I swear I could see constellations up there.



Since I had voluteered to go first before, our guide made me come up to the front of the cavern near a cliff while he was talking to us about the glowworms. He was strapping my harness to something while he talked but I didn't know exactly what it was--I thought we were going rappelling again. So I wasn't expecting him to turn off all the lights and then push me off the cliff! It was a zip line! Wooshing through the pitch blackness, with little glowworm lights whizzing by me was...terrifying! The ride didn't really last that long; once I figured out I wasn't falling to my death it was basically over.

Then the guides gave us inner tubes and told us to jump off another cliff while holding the tubes on our butts. They had a "chicken" option which looked much more complicated than the simple "jump off a cliff" option. I was scared (and still shaking from the zip line thing) but decided that if I could go bungee jumping, I could jump a few meters into some water.



We floated through the cave for about 45 minutes, sometimes towing ourselves along with the help of a rope attached to the side of the cave. That was my favorite part. Everyone turned off their headlamps, the glowworms were everywhere, and it seemed like we were in Wonderland.

Then we got to the end of the floating part and had to walk/swim/crawl through the caves for about the next hour. It was fun for a while, but the rocks were jagged and I was totally banged up, even with the wetsuit on. It was also completely exhausting.



To get out of the cave, we had to climb up two waterfalls! This picture isn't me (I took it off the touring company's website) but it COULD have been me--this is one of the waterfalls we had to climb up. Granted, rock climbing is much easier when there are two tour guides telling you, "Put your right hand here. Now put your left foot here." But even though it was kind of a "soft" adventure, it was still exhilarating.



I was completely and thoroughly exhausted by the end, and I did nothing for the rest of the day except lie on my bed and watch movies on my computer. But it was still awesome and I'm glad I went.