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Published: October 26th 2006
Fast Car (Well Not the Top Speed Achieved by this Machine)
You've got a fast car, I want a ticket to anywhere.........
Long road trip with lots of music.21.10.06 Saturday.
Early start to the day. Up at 4:30 wrote a couple of blogs and then jumped in the car. I told you my bags would be packed again!
Not much of a plan other than a few destinations. Waitomo Caves, Mt Taranaki, Pukeiti (internationally recognized Rhododendrons and Azaleas garden, thanks Steph) and then who knew what, the road was mine for the taking.
Arrived at Waitomo at 10:15am. Met three Germans and teamed up with them on the Black Abyss, a five hour adventure underground. You start out by stripping down to a bathing suit and then throw on a wet suit that’s been worn by who knows how many people. Take a 15 minute bus ride to the cave mouth. We were given abseiling training before our 35 meter (metre in NZ) drop to the cave floor.
After reaching the cave floor I had to wait up for the rest of the group. As my eyes adjusted to the dark I began to see the blue luminescence of the cave’s glowworm population (actually maggots, but who would pay to look at luminescing maggots?).
Once everyone was on the cave floor we moved to
Somewhere Outside Auckland
You know that you're in for a long drive when you leave auckland and see the freeway road sign say "Southern Motorway Ends" and you're still in the North part of the island. a precipice where the rumble of a waterfall and rapids could be heard below. We clamped on to a flying fox (zip line), turned the lights out and jumped. You fly approximately 150 feet not knowing what you were going to smash into on the other end, it was pitch black!
Again, once everyone was down we moved to another precipice where we were told to sit down and hang our legs over the edge. The running water could be seen 15 feet below. We were served a small cup of coffee and a small bit of chocolate, we were about to submerge ourselves in extremely cold water. Once we were done with break it was time to grab our inner tubes and jump in the water. Despite the wetsuit the frigidity of the water reminds me of a line from Seinfeld:
George: Well I just got back from swimming in the pool. And the water was cold...
Jerry: Oh... You mean... shrinkage.
George: Yes. Significant shrinkage!
We paddled around for a while but myself and the three Germans were always getting ahead of the group. Finally, one of the guides decided that we could break
Stuck behind this guy for 15 minutes.
No safe spot to pass on the narrow winding road. away from the slower less surefooted of the group. He took us over and behind waterfalls that typical cavers on tour don’t see. The best part of this side expedition was when he took us up one of the cave walls to a small opening about two and a half feet in diameter. We pulled ourselves in and crawled along the floor of the passage on our hands and knees. The passage shrunk down to about two feet square (smaller than the tunnel on The Great Escape) the floor had two ruts where peoples’ knees and elbows have worn the stone down. In all this claustrophobic side trip was more than three hundred feet long.
We eventually worked our way back to the main group that was waiting for us near the cave exit. To leave the cave there was the easy way or the hard way (The Waterfalls of Doom). What way do you think we went? The Germans and I took the doom path.
To reach the first waterfall one must be submerged up to your neck, crook your head to the side so that your hardhat can scrape by the ceiling and wedge yourself under a ledge
Blackwater Rafting
Arrived at 10:30am behind the waterfall. When it’s your turn to climb the falls you stretch one leg out into the void and reach for the opposite wall to plant your foot. It’s then a process of left right left steps and side steps as your body fights against the velocity of the water rushing down from above. In all the first fall is about 12 feet of climbing. The next fall was not as challenging but still a rare experience.
I could go on and on about this but I won’t let me just say this fulfilled my ‘80s dream for a Goonies experience.
Back on the road headed for New Plymouth and Mt. Taranaki. The road took me through emerald green fields, into rainforest like jungles, out to coastal regions that reminded me of the Highway 101 drive between the Oregon / California border and then out to the black sandy beaches of the west coast.
Arrived in New Plymouth around 7:30pm, a town that I’d never want to live in any longer than a week or so.
Despite all the day’s events I still found that I couldn’t get to sleep and was back up early the next morning. Feels
Me and the Three Germans
I met these guys at the Black Water Rafting Co. Office. We decided to do the $175 "Black Abyss" adventure. like my college days again, function on less and less sleep.
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Jim Lesniak
non-member comment
This was a fascinating account, you adventuresome animal! The photo of the bubble car reveals that someone has stolen the trunk off of it. Jim