Project Honeymoon - Day 7: Caving Adventure in Waitomo

The Black Abyss - Yay caving!  Hubby and I got our first taste of caving back home at Horne Lake.  Our guide there told us to go to Waitomo for caving in New Zealand.  So here we be with the Legendary Black Water Rafting Co. on their 5-hour Black Abyss tour of the Ruakuri Cave.  (Note: Photos on this post are from the Legenday Black Water Rafting Co.)

Get suited up - Part of the cave experience is in water.  Today, the water is a chilly 14 C.  In the winter it can get as cold as 6 C.  Our wetsuits have built in knee pads and bum pads.

Part 1: Abseiling (aka rappelling) - They use a different apparatus called a "rack" for abseiling.  It's heavier than other devices I've used (e.g. atc, figure 8, etc) but is better on the rope since it doesn't twist the rope.  The guide says you can get about 1200 falls on a rack, but only 600 on a figure 8.   This particular tube or tomo we're descending is 35 metres...cool!  On average, it takes about a minute tops to descend.  The longest someone took was 25 minutes...yowza!

Part 2: Flying Fox (aka zipline) - Not only is there a zipline in the cave, but you get to ride it in the dark...pretty awesome.

Part 3: Hot chocolate and cookies - They sit us on a ledge overlooking the cold water below.  When they pass out the hot chocolate and cookies you quickly figure out what follows next.  Funny, everything else about the tour is fine with me, but the thought of jumping into 14 C water freaks me out.

Part 4: Jump in! - Each of us are given an inner tube to jump in with.  One-by-one on the count of 3, we jump in while holding the tube to our bums.  OMG...the water is so cold that I can't breathe when I resurface.  I remember from a river rafting experience that this is a natural reaction when you plunge into cold water.  I gasp about 4 times, regain my composure, and join the others along the cave wall.

Part 5: Big secret revealed - The main attraction for visiting the caves in Waitomo are the glow worms.  When you look up you see a "starry sky" of glowing lights.   The luminescence is actually from insects called glow worms.  Our guide however, admits to us that there's no such thing as "glow worms"...what we're actually looking at are maggots!  Obviously, going to see "glow worms" sounds a lot better than seeing "glow maggots", hence the re-naming.  We float across the water gazing at the glow.

Part 6: Spelunking and free climbing a waterfall - We're off the inner tubes and keep moving to keep ourselves warm.  You can hear the waterfall in the distace and we trek through the water towards the sound.  When we get to the waterfall, hubby and I are surprised that they let us climb up through it.  The climb itself is only about a 5.6, but add gushing water and jagged rocks to fall on and it can be a little unnerving.  The guide is there to spot you and point out the best foot and hand holds...it's as safe as it can possibly get.

Part 7: Hot showers and soup - Hubby and I are happy with the tour overall.  It was a completely different experience from Horne Lake...slightly touristy...but not to say that we didn't get enough excitement.  I guess our Horne Lake experience was really exceptional (because we had the best caving guide ever...Nick Viera...who's passion for caves really shows)...although the cave tubing and waterfall climb are experiences you can't get back home.