Black Water Rafting

May 25th. After getting up and having a quick look at the glow worm caves here as a starter, it was time for the main course. A day of Black water rafting. This involved donning a couple of layers of wet suits, helmet and abseiling stuff and heading off to the main cave in Waitamo - Ruakuri. We get some abseil training and then do a 37 metre abseil down into the cave itself - it is quite tricky to remember your training as things are a little different when you have all your weight acting downwards unlike when we were practising. It was cool though and I landed OK in one piece. Then we walked through the cave till we got to the Death Slide which was a zip line into a glow worm grotto - we turned out all our lights and it was pretty magical (and a little scary) as you have no idea when you are going to stop - My words were "Whooa, Fuuuuuuuuuuu*k". After a cup of tea it was time to do a bit of tubing - we jumped off a couple of metres edge with the tractor inner tube on our backs and landed on the water. Then we paddled along for a while and saw lots of cool features and glow worms and formed a train of people. We went down a waterfall slide backwards and walked along - there is a fossilised whale bone down here as well as some eels. We crawl around in some caves and passageways and then have some hot orange and chocolates then some more caveing till we get to some waterfalls where we rock climb up them and finally exit. We had been underground for about 3 hours and it was sweet. Definitely one of the best things we have done in New Zealand and highly recommended if you are in this neck of the woods.

Pictures (Left) - Me mid abseil, (Right) - Me in the water.