Wetsuits and worms

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Today, bright and early, I headed off for a two hour drive to Waitomo, home of the legendary caves and gloworms. Very excited - first bit of adventure in a while and the first time I've been caving. Not looking forward to the wetsuit - however seeing as I'll be white water rafting tomorrow as well, I'd better get used to it.

First things first - we're greeted by Aaron, a Kiwi of supreme dry humour, and Terry, who looks like Sportacus from Lazy Town (or for anyone local to Burnham/Highbridge - Steve Wills). There were 12 or so I guess of us, all not really knowing what we were about to do, other than get in a cave and see gloworms. We're equipped with wetsuits, booties, crash helmets with headlamps and jackets, for which these guys get away with looking you up and down to 'measure' you for the appropriate suite (perk of the job I guess). I ask for a big suit - I get a big suit, which fits as perfectly as any wetsuit does). And a jacket, which just needs to fit our chests, 'doesn't matter about everywhere else'. For this, he's measured me as a very big. Like enormously, Jordan-esque big. Not even like I was wearing a wonderbra...Take a look at the photos on Facebook to see how much I was swimming in this jacket...

Anyway, next steps were to find a 'tube' that fits our backsides, as we'll be sitting in them on and off through the caves. Choice of small or large, I had to pick a large - which also turned out to be a gross over-estimate, once we did the test jump. Backs to the water and on a platform above the river at the entrance to the cave, we had to jump backwards, holding the rubber ring to our backsides. Cue me falling through the middle of my rubber ring on impact. Again, see photos for a laugh...

Off to the cave, and once inside it was a few minutes before we set off, just to get our eyes used to the dark. The crash helmets worried me a little as I wondered what I would be doing to require one. Turns out, as I bashed my head on every corner within the caves, that I needed one more than most...

We scooted about in our tubes, jumped off waterfalls within the caves, and then all linked up to look at the unbelievable gloworms above our heads. We were even given a chocolate fish each as a treat half way round (and I love a chocolate fish - happy memories of going to the Kiwi shop on Haymarket when we were based in Piccadilly with TP), and a commentary about what a gloworm is (something along the lines of a maggot, with glow in the dark poo...). What I like about these little devils though is not only that they glow, but that they eat sandflies for breakfast. And after what those little blighters did to my feet, a gloworm can be my friend forever.

On the other side, a couple of hours later, and having cruised around looking up at the ceiling at the cave formations as well as the gloworms, we crawled out into the daylight, to be rewarded with tomato soup and a bagel (the water was like ice the whole way round - we needed to get warm quick!). I sat for a chat with two girls from Scotland before heading back over to Rotarua - exhausted but made up with what I'd done today. Even found myself debating whether or not I can squeeze a sky dive in after white water rafting tomorrow for the two hour journey, yet repeatedly talked myself out of it for the grounds mentioned previously. Now all we need to do is see if I can stick to it...

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