The Rain is a good thing today - hooray!!

Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Waitomo Caves
December 18th 2007

Published: December 18th 2007

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Cat and Big G

With our fellow cavers

Me and G are just to the right!

Yup we have been and gone and black water rafted....given that there was so much rain again last night, we decided to seek our entertainment 85ft underground.....and because there was so much rain it was to our benefit, as the underground rapids were wild.......

We were strussed up in rather fetching wetsuits, that were wet from the previous trippers, i just hope that mine had not been wee'd in by the previous person wearing it.

We then were given helmets with torches, and a big rubber ring, before being given some brief instructions on how to paddle through the rapids.

The trip was for three hours through some amazing caves, really tight tunnels, where you had to lie back, and duck out of the way of stalagtites, pulling yourself along by your fingers....therewas watrefalls inside the cave system, where you had to jump off backwards holding onto your inner tube, and just pray you made it to the other side...at one point the rapids flipped me over, and my tube went pinging downstream...scary stuff, but I managed to grab hold of a fellow caver and I am ok ( dont panic Mum !!))

The glow worms inside

How many ways can you pose??

Just like "America's next top Model challenge" we had to pose with our tube......( me and g to right of piccie )

the cave were an amazing sight, and the more noise we made the brighter they shone. The scariest part was when they made you switch your headlamp off and you just had to follow a trail of glow worms back to the entrance to the cave, as sometimes there were no worms...I really wish I had not seen that film the descent...I swear i saw something down there...

The afternoon it was lashing down and we decided to just go for it and embrace the rain so we booked ourselves onto a 2 hour tour of farmland by Quad bike..it really was superb. The scenery was so perfect, it looked like a movie set, although Graham was too busy burning rubber to take it all in....we drove through fields of Bull's that were excited!! and being the only heffer I was a tad worried, especially as my vehicle was like a big red flag! This was my favourite experience so far......and the rain, made it even better, hard to explain, but the land was amost sparkling, sorry for sounding twee !!

We have now driven for 5 hours to Northlands, and hope to see the lionman tomorrow........for anyone