Black Water Rafting/Polynesian Spa (Feb. 6th)

Woke up early and was picked up at the hostel by the Waitomo Wanderer bus at 7:30. I slept/read for most of 2 hour 15min bus ride to the Waitomo Caves. On the way though I saw the NZ countryside. It had lots of rolling hills top off with sheep and/or cows. The cows here look a lot different from home. They're not fatty here, but more healthy, well-fed looking.

The bus dropped us off at the Legendary Black Water Rafting Company. David had some nasty breaky deal. It ended up being some burnt white french toast with greasy bacon, grilled banana, whipped cream and chemical syrup. I had a herb chicken and avacado sandwich. Pretty good actually (also had a triple chocolate muffin to ease the nerves :) just joking, I was pumped).

We met our 2 guides and the rest of our group of 8. Went and got suited up. Was quite the process. First you had to put on little sockies, then wetsuit bottoms, shorts, wetsuit jacket, helmet and lastly booties. Looked funny, especially with the shorts. They gave us a little commentary on the wetsuits, telling us we couldn't pee in them (since water couldn't go through them; the socks stopped that). Told us that there would be pee breaks in the caves, yay!

Once suited, we did a little photoshoot before jumping on the happy bus (to take us to the caves).

At the caves we practiced repelling on the side of the hill, to get used to the equipement we'd be using. It was different stuff from that we used in the Blue Mountains (figure 8's). Here we used a device called the "rack." By using our thumb on it we could control the speed that repelled at (they also said it was "voice activated," it was joke; if we fell screaming the guy at the bottom would pull on the rope, thereby stopping us from falling any further)

After the practice runs we got prepped to go down the hole. The cave we were headed into was a bottle neck deal. The top (where we were starting) was very narrow and the bottom big. Some of the bigger guys had to wiggle their way through part of it.

I went second down into the cave (wanted to be sure the apparatus was in good working condition of course :) ). When I started going down, it got really narrow fast. It freaked me out a bit because the space was so small and I was headed into a big area of darkness.

While I was repelling in the dark I yelled out how much further did I have to go. The guide below yelled that I was halfway there. I was actually 5m from the floor, he came behind me and scared me half to death. The whole repell was about 35m.

He unclipped me from the rack and told me to head down the stairs deeper into the cave. Once down in the "waiting" area, with my headlamp off, I could see all the glowworms on the ceiling above. Looked really cool!

After everyone was in the cave, we climbed our way farther down into the cave. We got to look at stalagmites and glowworms close up. The guides educated us on the glowworms. They said that the glowworms are actually maggots. That if we looked closely we could see that they looked like tiny twigs with a glowing butt (enzymes in their poo). The glowworms dangle a web to catch food that they can bring into their mouth. Also that they live as maggots for 9 months before going into a cocoon and emerging as a fly (which looks like mozzies). They reproduce as these flies for 5 days before dying. Quite the life.

We continued walking through the cave until the path turned into a rock cliff. Since I was infront I was asking the guide where we were headed next. He turned around, clipped me into a harness device and said that it was bungee time. Of course he was joking...he had me at first though. He said it was the "flying fox." Whatever that was. So I put my legs together and went flying down on the rope in the dark. Screamed the whole way down and at the end of the line there was a loud boom noise. Was so freaked out. The other guide unclipped me from the line and got me to lay down so that the next person wouldn't smack into me. After we were all down it was snack time! Some sort of oat bar (which was really good) and tea (not a huge fan of, but I was cold).

They handed us out tubes and showed us how to jump into the river below. We floated in the river checking out the glow worms on ceilings. Part-way down the river the guide stopped us to do some mud face painting. Well I'm not the biggest fan of mud, so the painting I did on my face consisted of two lines under my eyes (the ones football players usually have). The guide took one look at me, grabbed a bunch of mud, and did a handprint all over my face! Messy! (but fun)

At one point on the river we ditched our tubes, and went head first down a waterslide. After that was our first pee break, and I reaaaaallly had to go. So the guys went further downstream and the girls stayed where we were. We all turned off our lamps to strip in the dark. I had to take the whole wetsuit off. It was so freezing cold. That was all fine, but after I couldn't get my wetsuit back on. Had to get the guide to come back and help me.

We walked down the narrow caves further. They got us to go through this tight rock opening they called the "birth canal." I had to crawl my way through while they made baby crying sounds at me (was pretty funny).

Another snack stop. This time chocolate and hot orange drink, yummy.

We went through (crawled) this caving system (the guides by-passed it and met us at the other end). Had to remember to turn Left-Left-Right-Left at all intersecting tunnels. It's a good thing I don't have a problem in small spaces.

Near the end of our caving trip the guides gave us two options to get out of the cave. The first was to go out the "tranquil" way (a very easy walk). The second way to go was the "DOOM." Of course we all picked Doom (3 big, steep, dangerous, waterfalls in the small cave space). I climbed through the first opening to get to the first waterfall. The guides helped me place my feet in the proper spot so that I would make it up it. If you fall, you're hooped. The guides actually pushed me up a couple waterfalls once I had my feet placed correctly (I swear I was almost doing the splits in some of them). We all made it out of the caves alright. We hiked back to the van, drove back to Waitomo where we all had tomato soup. Soon after, David and I hopped back on the Waitomo Wanderer back to Rotorua.

After getting back to Rotorua we headed to the spa to warm up. They had all these pools right on Lake Rotorua; it was a really nice view. The acid pools were for aches and pains. The alkaline pools were for the skin. That topped off a crazy day...