Blundering Through Black Caves

Today was a day we have been looking forward to for quite some time.  We had been told by many to visit the Waitomo glowworm caves to do blackwater rafting.

On the way we stopped to do a quick bush walk to visit some famous falls called Bridal Veil falls.  I could see why they called them that, because there was just a small volume of water cascading over a 55m (170ft) high cliff, such that it did look like a veil.  It was very pretty and majestic.

We did our rafting with a company called the Blackwater Rafting Co. and chose the cheaper option of the Black Labyrinth 3 hr tour.  This was a slick run operation.  We were with a group of 10 (two families whose parents were friends since uni), and were all suited up together in 5 ml wetsuits, shorts, boots and helmets.  We looked (and felt) like a bunch of ducks. It was great!

We all piled into a van with two guides and drove to Ruakiri cave - which in Maori stands for the 'den of two dogs' and is a major cave with a series of underground walkways and rivers.  Thankfully we all had lights on our helmets to manoeuvre through the dark caves.  It was eerie when you looked around to think that you are underground and all you hear is the rush of water and the sounds of those in your group.  We had individual inner tubes that we used during certain parts of the tour where there was lots of water.  The best part was jumping backwards in our tubes from small waterfalls and landing in the frigid water below. 

At one point in the tour they had us form an eel, where we basically formed a line and held onto the feet (boots) of someone behind us.

Then they asked us to turn off our lights as we waded down the dark river and looked at the line of glowworms in the cave ceiling well above our head.  It was so neat!  The guide explained that they actually aren't worms at all but fly larvae with glowing excrement that they emit for 9 months in order to attract bugs up to them that they then eat.  They are also carnivorous as they not only eat their prey, but also their less fit siblings.  Then they sleep for 3 weeks in cocoons, and then spend last 3 months of their lives producing for the next generation.  The guide says he wouldn't mind the life of that fly - you're born, you eat your siblings, you fish for 9 months, sleep for 2 weeks, then shag yourself to death!  ;o)

Following that, they took us on another walk where it got too shallow and then as we got back into the water they told us yet again to turn off our lights and find our own way out of the tunnel by following the trail of the glowworms. 

It ended up being a much tamer trip than we thought (there weren't rapids or anything and it was more like a lazy river), but it was definitely unique and interesting, and not something we could do at home.   

Astrid.