Black water rafting

---

It was an early start this morning, real early but all nine of us made it and were excited for our black water rafting adventure. A weird thing has happened since i've started travelling, whenever I have a few drinks, I have an overwhelming urge to make sure that everybody in the vincity knows who I am, my life story, my future aspirations and my outlook on my life. Now when i'm sober I am fully aware that this is not much interest to anybody but I can’t seem to help myself, this morning this came to bite me. As I was trying unsuccessfully to get into my wetsuit which was the biggest obstacle i’ve ever had to face in my 25 years, I suddenly hear a voice from around the corner, "I know that voice, it has to be Claire, the ultimate pool champion", apparently it was our guides that I was chewing the ears off the night before and as they continued to remind me of what I said, I was cringing with embarrassment, made even more embarrassing by the fact that I was still having major issues with my wetsuit. I have made a decision, when I get to Wellington, i’m going to stay there and get a job and go on major detox, before my liver decides that it can’t take anymore but anyway back to the activity in hand, once I finally successfully managed the feat of the wetsuit challenge, we made our way to the caves.

Black water rafting is strange as we didn’t have rafts. We were in a pitch black cave only lit by our head torches and thousands of glow worms. We had to first abseil in the caves through a very tight hole which at one point we all believed that we weren’t going to get through and then do a flying fox down to the water all in complete darkness as our guides, we then got into our rubber ring and jumped into the water,, I was the first one and the water was freezing and I couldn’t hide the shock on my face which I’m sure made it harder for the others to jump in. The next 5 hours were hard core, scrambling through tiny spaces, climbing up waterfalls, diving under rocks, made all the harder by the fact that my head torch died on me, (faulty equipment and me seem to gel) so I had to use the light from everyone else which was a mission. It was fun and we felt like we were the first people to discover it as we made our way through the cave, it was also beautiful as you looked up to see the thousands of glow worm twinkling away looking like a galaxy of stars while you are in near complete darkness, well until you remembered that Glow worms are actually maggots and the thing that glows is actually their poo, when you remember those details, its not as beautiful. Coming to the end of our time down in the caves we had one more obstacle to accomplish, climbing up one of the stronger waterfalls to get onto dry land, it was hard work as the water just kept pushing you back down but when we managed it, we were all made up with the achievement and to celebrate because we were already drenched from head to toe we decided on a water fight which I will admit I lost by quite a way.

We then headed back to the centre to warn ourselves up with hot showers, hot soup and toast before meeting the others to head off for Taupo, next point on the map.

---