In this cave system, we donned thick wet suits, harnesses, and inner tubes to have heaps of fun over 100 feet below the Earth's surface! Our trip began with a 30-meter abseil into the cave (I'm glad I had the abseiling experience from the Blue Mountains in OZ). This opening to the cave was literally a tiny hole in the ground about 3 feet in diameter, hidden by bushes and trees. Actually, this entrance was found from within the cave, as the cave explorers saw some light, estimated where they were, exited the cave through a known hole, and tracked down where they thought this new hole was! Awesome!
So we harnessed in and abseiled into the hole which was actually a 30 meter deep, hour-glass shaped tube. You had to squeeze through the throat of the hour glass by pointing your toes and thinking small thoughts ;) After the abseil, we zip lined over a 20-meter deep pit to get across the cavern. Then we grabbed our inner tubes and jumped off a three-meter cliff into the cave's river. Keep in mind, all of this was done in the black abyss, underground, and by the light of a head lamp, so cool! Since the underground river was freezing, we had hot chocolate and cookies in the cave, as well as steaming hot Gatorade and chocolate bars later in the trip. Haha the hot Gatorade was actually pretty good!
During the "black water rafting", we switched off our head lamps and floated beneath thousands of glow worms!! It was like floating beneath the Milky Way! I think I saw the Southern Cross! This was definitely one of my favorite parts of the caving trip because it was relaxing, and I was just so awe struck at seeing all of the glow worms dotting the celling of the cave in their neon green colors. In fact, the glow worms are not worms at all... They're maggots! And the glowing part is not the maggot, but the maggot poo! Their glowing poo attracts bugs and sandflies. These bugs are allured by the light and get caught in the stringy excretion hanging from the maggot. It's really gross, but kind of cool at the same time. The "glow worms" provided some good light in the cave, it wasn't super bright, but it was better than the pitch black.
Our next task was to get through a squeeze, which was a tight and narrow passageway in the cave. It was super muddy and oh so tight. We were crawling on our hands and knees, sliding between rocks, squeezing through crevasses, all the while getting all muddy and bruised up. It was great! I supposes it was kind of scary too when you put it into perspective (which i did once during the squeeze and almost panicked), but you're pretty much wedged between huge limestone rock faces, 100 feet below the ground, in the pitch black. Yikes!
After some more playing around in the cave, it was time to exit. We left the cave by climbing up an underground waterfall! It seemed strange at first to be climbing up a waterfall to get out of the cave, but the it made so much sense... Since waterfalls flow downward and you're underground, you don't want to follow the waterfall down and go deeper, you want to go opposite the flow of water to find higher ground. Crazy backwards!
Climbing the waterfall out of the cave was challenging, but exhilarating too! No ropes or harnesses, you had to find your own foot and hand holds in the rock (luckily we had some good direction from our guides, or I might have fallen off the face of the waterfall). There as one point where you literally had to straddle the waterfall, with one foot on each side of the rushing water. Wow I'd never been so happy to see the light! We survived!
One of the best parts of the trip, in my opinion, was getting to know our guides Zane and Matt. Matt was younger, Zane older, and Matt's family owns the caves (since they were found under his family's land). Whoever owns the land above owns the caves below. Matt is pumped about inheriting the caves soon! He said that without the caves, no one would give a lick about Waitomo. The caves put this small town on the map!
Both Matt and Zane have explored these caves systems extensively, and are still exploring them! They are wild cavers! They find new passageways, new caverns, millions of years old fossils and skeletons, etc. They take with them only whatever equipment they think they'll need like ropes, harnesses, lights... It's mind-boggling to me. I found comfort in knowing that Matt and Zane knew the caves, knew that the tight areas we were squeezing through would open up into a cavern, and knew where to go to get out of the cave. Could you imagine doing wild caving like them and having so many unknowns?? I would be so afraid of not knowing what you're going to find or if you'll get stuck or be faced with a bottomless pit that you can't get across. But I could definitely tell that Matt and Zane are absolutely thrilled by wild caving. They love it!
We finished our caving trip with some hot tomato soup and bagels, bid farewell to our awesome guides, and hit the road to get to the nearby town of Otorohanga. The attraction- the Otorohanga Kiwi House! It's a natural greenhouse, aviary, and reserve for the kiwi birds and other rare and endangered animals in New Zealand. The kiwi birds are so so so cute! They are flightless, have fur-like feathers, and are the only bird to have nostrils at the end of their long beaks. They are also bigger than I imagined! They're the size of a good watermelon! I expected them to be the size of a pear... The kwis also have strong, powerful legs, are very fast runners, and they're nocturnal. Other birds at the sanctuary were teals (which looked like mallard ducks, but with more fantastic coloring), herons, NZ white pidgins, parakeets, Kara and Kea birds, and Kingfishers. So many beautifully colored birds!
The other main attraction at this preserve is the rare and mighty Tuatara! The tuatara is described as an old fossil, and there are only two species of it's kind. It's the closest living creature we have to the dinosaur, and scientists believe that the tuatara was actually around BEFORE the dinosaurs! The tuatara is classified as a reptile, but it is far from a typical lizard. Te tuatara has spikes along it's back, a third eye on its head to detect light, and a chunky, meaty tail. The tuatara also have a reproductive cycle similar to humans. They only have offspring every 4 to 5 years, and it takes them 9 to 13 years to become sexually mature. It was fascinating and quite incredible to see such a rare and exotic creature!
From the Kiwi House, we drove for a few hours into Tongariro National Park. We stayed at Discovery Lodge (it was amazing, more on this later), cooked dinner, and rested up for our big hike in the morning. While we spent today underground, we are spending tomorrow above the clouds! (Well, if we have good weather).
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