After leaving Rotorua we drove up to Waitomo via Taupo. We checked into a hostel in the middle of the "town" and made our way to the nearest, and only pub. Waitomo is the best place to do caving in
New Zealand, and its big attraction is the glow-worm caves where you can see these creatures in large numbers in the huge caverns that are dotted around the area. The caves are pretty wet and most have large areas of open water that you can swim or float through, so it didnt take the kiwis long to come up with "blackwater rafting" - floating through the underground rivers on inflatable rubber rings. Kiri and Sarah decided that just floating was a little bit lame. They wanted some abseiling thrown in for a bit more danger - evidently the risk of drowning isn't sufficient and you need to add in the possibility of a long fall down to your watery death - so we booked on a trip to "Hagga's Honking Holes". We got rubbered up in thick wetsuits and had a crash course in abseiling from the guides, then descended into the caverns. It consists of three abseils down waterfalls, and one occasion when you get dropped down into a pool of water by one of the guides. Seeing that everyone else was more scared than me was a great comfort. I even managed to look happy in one of the pictures which is unusual as in normal photos I can rarely manage a smile...
It was a fantastic trip and nobody died, which is always a bonus. But of course now I'm a true extreme sportsman it was just a walk in the park to me...
New Zealand, and its big attraction is the glow-worm caves where you can see these creatures in large numbers in the huge caverns that are dotted around the area. The caves are pretty wet and most have large areas of open water that you can swim or float through, so it didnt take the kiwis long to come up with "blackwater rafting" - floating through the underground rivers on inflatable rubber rings. Kiri and Sarah decided that just floating was a little bit lame. They wanted some abseiling thrown in for a bit more danger - evidently the risk of drowning isn't sufficient and you need to add in the possibility of a long fall down to your watery death - so we booked on a trip to "Hagga's Honking Holes". We got rubbered up in thick wetsuits and had a crash course in abseiling from the guides, then descended into the caverns. It consists of three abseils down waterfalls, and one occasion when you get dropped down into a pool of water by one of the guides. Seeing that everyone else was more scared than me was a great comfort. I even managed to look happy in one of the pictures which is unusual as in normal photos I can rarely manage a smile...
It was a fantastic trip and nobody died, which is always a bonus. But of course now I'm a true extreme sportsman it was just a walk in the park to me...
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