Dirt 4 Life

Black Water Rafting

The perfect finish to an epic adventure the Waitomo Caves furthermore the 5 hour ‘Black Abyss’.  The decision was made to do the more advanced caving trip after talking with one of the guys at front desk, as 3 hour the Black Labyrinth sounded a little boring.

We booked the 9am trip on Friday and I guess no one else wanted to go on the early trip that was great for us – we had a guide to ourselves for our 4-5 hour caving adventure.

First off we had to get our gear sorted – wetsuit, booties, rubber boots, harness, biners, repel device, safety lines and helmet. All ready to go we drive for about 10 mins to the entrance of the cave and did a few dry practice runs to learn how to use the repel device and how important the brake hand is.

So hooked up and ready to go I went first and yes very nervous when the guide says okay just bend your knees and swing out off the landing pad and down this tight tunnel. Then the cave opened up into a huge cathedral of dark space. It seemed like a long way then I could see the light of the guide below and a sigh of relief came over me. I unhooked and then Phil came down of course no problem. A little bit of walking on some metal grates and then on to the flying fox also known as a zip-line. I again, first up hooked in and ready to go just step off this ramp and we like to do this part in the dark as the guide turns off my light and sends me off. Loosing my voice I couldn’t even scream it was really fast and over, before you knew it. Phil followed and loved it.

Next up black water rafting standing up on a ledge, harnesses are now off and we are given an inner tube and told to place it against our buts and jump off you can’t really see the bottom but the water is down there somewhere. So Phil steps up and the guide says on the count of 3 your going to jump or I’m going to push you. Phil says what? Okay 1,2,3 and Phil jumps, okay my turn guide says on 3 jump so 1,2,3 and I say hold a minute I’m going down there, okay again on 3 okay no more counting I will jump I just need a minute. So I ask the guide so what if the innertude moves off – don’t worry it won’t he says, Okay so I jump, yelling as I free fall and then hit the water, sinking a few feet under and then reimmerse from the water with a mouth full of cave water just exhilarated and wanting to do it again. One guide named Stew will be with us for the rest of our trip and we venture down the cave to check out the glowworms and since there is only 2 of us we get to go all the way to the end of the cave and it’s just amazing. The guide had a hard time keeping up to us it was so much fun. The glow from the worms amazingly light up the cave and showed us the way through in the pitch black. We stopped for some caving on the way back so we climbed up the side of the cave and through to some amazing stalagmites and then we had to crawl through a space where you had to turn your head sideways to get thru not much room at all but we came out into a huge cathedral. WOW.

More rafting and then we leave the rafts and walk the rest of the way in varying depths from knee deep to swimming in deep pools down the cave we go to another side trip. This cave was pretty exciting but hard to explain squeezing, crawling, head first, feet first and pulling ourselves through tight squeezes, and really having to think of how to get yourself through some of the spaces, It was so hot as we squeezed thru the caves as we were wearing our wetsuits the whole time. We climbed up some underground waterfalls, learned to climb with just butt and knees down a rock chimney.

Amazing experience out of our comfort zone and it awesome I would definitely do it again.

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