Our last night at Black-Jack Lodge ended with a beautiful sunset, but we didn't linger much longer after that. We got up at 5:00a.m. and left for the Waitomo Caves. There we ate our sandwiches while we waited for our black water cave tour to start.
We chose the most
intense of the cave rafting tours named the 'Black Abyss', because this is how the brochure described it:
The caving tour of choice for natural born adrenaline junkies everywhere. Descend into the seemingly bottomless black depths of the glow worm studded Ruakuri Cave. This five hour expedition combines abseiling the 35 metre tomo, climbing, whizzing down a flying fox and cave tubing underneath glow worms into one unforgettable journey. We weren't disappointed! We started off by getting a quick lesson on abseiling (aka repelling), and then we actually repelled 115 ft. into the dark, narrow mouth of the cave we'd spend the next three hours in.
The guide was the only one with a camera (it had to be waterproof), so we won't be able to post the pictures of us in the cave until later. Senushi was sent down the zipline first in the pitch black except for tiny glowworms that studded the ceiling of the cave. After we'd all ziplined down, I joined a few others by taking my innertube and leaping 13 ft down into the black water river that flowed through the rest of the cave. By the way, this water was COLD (50 degrees)! Our very worn-in neoprene wetsuits couldn't keep our hands and toes from going numb, and Senushi spent the first hour of the trip thinking her extremities would fall off from frostbite. We floated on our tubes with our helmet lights off, allowing the glowworms to provide us with just a bit of light. The floating lasted 5 minutes, and we were off to do those 'adrenaline junkie' things the brochure had touted about. Hiking through the cold river that was sometimes knee dip and sometimes up to my chin, we came across waterfalls to climb up or jump down and cave walls to scale up. Senushi lost one of her boots in a gushing waterfall, and hiked the last hour in one boot (not so fun considering the sometimes sharp rocks at the bottom of the black river). We climbed out and agreed we'd had a great time! After a quick shower, we were off to New Zealand's most popular tourist attraction: the town of Rotorua.
The guide was the only one with a camera (it had to be waterproof), so we won't be able to post the pictures of us in the cave until later. Senushi was sent down the zipline first in the pitch black except for tiny glowworms that studded the ceiling of the cave. After we'd all ziplined down, I joined a few others by taking my innertube and leaping 13 ft down into the black water river that flowed through the rest of the cave. By the way, this water was COLD (50 degrees)! Our very worn-in neoprene wetsuits couldn't keep our hands and toes from going numb, and Senushi spent the first hour of the trip thinking her extremities would fall off from frostbite. We floated on our tubes with our helmet lights off, allowing the glowworms to provide us with just a bit of light. The floating lasted 5 minutes, and we were off to do those 'adrenaline junkie' things the brochure had touted about. Hiking through the cold river that was sometimes knee dip and sometimes up to my chin, we came across waterfalls to climb up or jump down and cave walls to scale up. Senushi lost one of her boots in a gushing waterfall, and hiked the last hour in one boot (not so fun considering the sometimes sharp rocks at the bottom of the black river). We climbed out and agreed we'd had a great time! After a quick shower, we were off to New Zealand's most popular tourist attraction: the town of Rotorua.
1 comments:
Can't wait to see the pictures of you two rafting! Everything looks exciting :)
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