Waitomo Caves Day 147 12/02/2105

We decided to go with the Legendary Black Water Rafting Company and chose to go on their Black Abyss tour. After getting changed into wet suits we were driven a short distance to Ruakuri Cave entrance and practiced abseiling (with a strange belay device that neither of us had seen before). The tour involved a 35m vertical abseil through a small hole into the cave, a "flying fox" zip wire into the black depths of the cave, being handed a large black rubber ring and jumping 10 feet into the black water (even with the wet suits on it was still cold and it wasn't possible to hold the ring and your nose at the same time), a float on the rings deeper into the cave to see hundreds of glow worms (which looked like stars in the sky not moth larvae) with our torches off, then an exhilarating crawl, climb, slide, paddle, waddle through some very narrow caves and finally climbing up two waterfalls which whilst they weren't very high they certainly got the heart racing. At one point whilst leading the group Simon came face to face with an eel. The glow worms were amazing, we've never seen so many before, with their glow reflecting on the water below and lighting up the caves. We emerged 3.5 hours later, glad to see the sunlight but really having enjoyed a quite different experience, which definitely took Diane out of her comfort zone at times (not least because water and contact lens don't really go well together). We were joined by two young American ladies (having a jolly before starting what sounded like a very non descript easy course at an Uni in Sydney) and two Slovak couples. Our guides were Baz (a Dutch guy with a strong US accent) and Ellen, a Kiwi ex lacrosse player. Whilst both were a bit OTT at times, they were good fun and made the day and certainly the second half felt more like a true caving experience. We headed back to the campsite feeling quite exhilarated and enjoyed a bbq meal that evening in the warm summer sunshine. We don't have any pictures to post as our camera is not waterproof, but we bought the USB of the pictures that Baz and Ellen took of us all so we will add them when we find a PC to download and email them to ourselves.