Caving

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Getting over the jet-lag takes time. It was hard to go to sleep and wake up at a reasonable time. Today we drove about 2 hours north to go caving. This was completely new to me and I had no idea what this was all about. We had breakfast and a couple hours later got off the bus in a very hilly and green part of the north island, called Waitomo. There were 2 choices of where to go and I chose the more difficult one, called Hagas Honking Holes (or something like that) rated 7 out of 10 on the rambo scale. Our group, about 7, was the first. We got into this old van that was just like the original VW slug bug. We went up a windy road, the view was great. We got to this warehouse and changed into full length wet suits and absailing gear. Soon we practiced the absailing techniques on a hill and were ready to go. After a short hike we went down a ladder into the cave. It was amazing. First we had to absail one at a time down a 90 foot cliff, which was very intense and scary. At the bottom we got into an undground river and followed it for 2 or 3 hours. The water was cold, and many of the passages were narrow and everybody had to crawl on their stomach. The caves were full of natural staligmites and staligtights. It was pitch black down there, so a flashlight was attached to our helmets.
We also did some rock climbing which was more difficult than I thought it would be. There is nothing like caving and I hope to explore a different cave sometime in the future.

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