Day 22 Friday, September 17 -- The Legendary Black Water Rafting at Waitomo Caves

Synopsis

We took a thrilling guided tour of the Waitomo Caves (which are famous for their glow worms) involving abseiling (rappelling), a zip cord, jumping off cliffs into a cave stream, tubing up the stream, swimming down the stream, a slide, and hiking up underground waterfalls. What an incredible tour! The adventure was perhaps Lynette’s highlight of the whole trip, and by far the highlight of the North Island. We then headed towards the middle of the North Island to Tongiriro National Park, home of the North Islands most spectacular scenery, for the night.

Detailed Journal

We slept in until 8am. It was a slow moving morning consisting of breakfast and campervan duties. We decided to head over to the cave museum at 1015, since we didn't have to be at the Legendary Black Water Rafting Company until 1045am. We attempted to complete some e-mailing, but the connection was extremely slow. Our tickets for the Rafting/caving included free admission to the Cave Museum. So, we checked it out for the rest of our time.

We arrived at the Legendary Black Water Rafting Company at 1045. We paid for our trip, filled out a health evaluation, received coupons for free soup and a bagel following our trip, and were told that our guide would call us to the front door at 11am and to have a bathing suit and a towel. Promptly at 11am, one of our guides, Benjamin, called for the 11am Black Abyss group. After slight confusion, the group of 7 was formed (including the guide). Our group consisted of another couple from Canada and two ladies from Germany. Within a few minutes, Benjamin led us down tot he changing area. We were given a micro-fleece type shirt to wear over our bathing suits. We were also given a wet suit, consisting of “socks”, overalls, and a jacket. After getting geared up, we were then given a pair of ankle-high white, rubbery type boots for climbing over rocks. Next came the harnesses for the abseiling (rappelling) portion of the trip. We then grabbed a helmet with a light and fitted it to our heads before grabbing a pair of gloves. After a few pictures, everyone locked their clothes up in a small cabinet and we loaded up in a van to head to our point of entry.

The guide company had a practice rappelling course set-up outside the cave entrance point. He showed us the proper procedures and we practiced several times. Our other guide, Louisa, climbed out of the hole we were going to enter. She didn’t know that she was going with us, and, therefore, didn’t have her wetsuit. We waited for her to return to the shop and get her suit before starting entry to the cave. When she returned, she quickly hoped down the hole to hold the bottom of the rope for each of us. The guy from Canada went next, followed by his girlfriend. The two ladies from Germany each went. Jason and I played a quick game of paper, scissors, rock with the loser going last. Lynette lost on the third round. Stupid paper always getting cut up by those darn scissors. Benjamin was kind enough to snap a few photos of Lynette on her way down. It was a lot of fun! The entry wasn’t very long. There were a few portions that were kinda tight – about a meter and a half wide. Lynette’s ride down was fairly quick. She was ready to go again!

We had a brief group discussion once we were all in the hole about the formation of the caves 60 million years ago and the importance of leaving everything you see intact before hiking down a little way deeper into the cave. We crossed a little walkway over a huge hole to a zip line. Given the darkness of the cave, you could only see the hook-up with our headlamps and couldn't see where the zip line would take you. Louisa hooked us up one at a time and we were all instructed to keep our headlights off as each person was released. The line wasn't very long (25 meters), but it moved at quite a quick little pace to an open area with the ceiling covered with glowworms.

After we had each taken our turn on the zip line, our guides led us to a cliff edge overlooking the river that ran through the cave. We sat on the ledge and they supplied us with their legendary cookie and our choice of coffee or tea. The "cookies" were so good. We were told the recipes were available back at the shop for free.

After our snack, we donned our wet suit gloves and were each handed an inner tube. We were then instructed to place the tube against our bum, jump off the cliff, and land hind end first in the water. Jason was the first to go and Lynette quickly followed. It was quite a rush of chilly water!

After everyone had safely landed, we began paddling upstream in our inner tubes. We stopped at a low ledge, providing a great up-close look at the glowworms. Glowworms are actually maggots, as they eventually turn into an insect. They weave a small cocoon-type sleeve to sleep in and from there they essentially "poop" a substance that glows and little sticky hanging strings. The goal is to attract insects into thinking the green light is the way out of the dark cave, trapping them and eating them. Glowworms are only able to eat in the maggot stage, so they try to save enough food for their adult insect life, which, on average, is only 3 days. They spend those three days essentially producing offspring before dying.

From there the river became more shallow, so we jumped out and walked upstream pulling our inner tubes. When we reached a big open area in the cave, we got back into the tubes and formed a chain, placing our legs on the tube of the person in front of us. We then turned off our headlamps, and Benjamin pulled the train of tubes down the cave so that we could see the cave ceiling covered with glowworms. It looked like a night sky filled with stars. It was so beautiful. Benjamin stopped a few times and slapped the water, creating a loud noise vibration in the cave which resulted in a stronger glow from the glowworms. The theory is that they are trying to attract food. Someone in our group said "aren't you really just scaring the crap out of them?"

When we reached the point where we had jumped into the river, we returned out tubes to the cliff and began swimming downstream. The chilly water was estimated to be somewhere between 12 and 14 degrees Celsius. We soon came to a small slide and each made a freestyle slide. We then entered the area known as "drunks man’s walk". It was impossible to maintain your balance with the uneven ground below.

Our guides then had us "call for whales", by humming into holes in the cave walls. The echoes were really cool. We stopped to feel a bone in the river bottom that had been scientifically evaluated as an ancient whale bone. Left approximately 60 million and 60 years ago. Really cool. At this point, we stopped for a warming of ra-ra juice and chocolate. We then hiked on further and into small openings (river high enough to fit head through). We continued our hike through open areas to a waterfall. We each took turns climbing series of 3 big waterfalls to exit the caves.

We began the short hike back to our entrance point. Jason was a little slow moving and out of it this point. We piled into the van and returned to the shop to remove all our gear and shower. Jason and I realized that we had forgotten our toiletries, so we ran back to the van in our bathing suit (getting some weird looks from our guides before returning to the suit-up area for a hot shower. Following the shower, we entered the café for our complimentary (brothy) tomato soup and "legendary" bagel. We sat and talked to Louisa and completed an evaluation of the trip.

We then jumped back into the van and began the drive towards Tongoriro. It was raining as we approached the Park. It was too late to get a campsite, so we parked the van at a trailhead near the visitor’s center for the evening. Dinner tonight was cheese pasta with chicken and a green peas and corn vegetable medley. We sampled a mini-bottle of Montana 2003 Gisborne Chardonnay. The chardonnay was definitely better than that cab/merlot blend the other night – but nothing spectacular.

Pictures

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