...but have you heard of the ominous sounding Black Water Rafting?
About 3 hours South of Auckland and just South of Hamilton you can turn off of motorway 3 and head towards Waitomo Caves.
The Waitomo Caves are a large network of limestone caves set in the rolling New Zealand countryside and ... Read review
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Advantages: Something you can't do anywhere else!! Incredible experience . Disadvantages: Cold, dark and scary ;-) Can't take photos below ground
...motorway 3 and head towards Waitomo Caves.
The Waitomo Caves are a large network of limestone caves set in the rolling New Zealand countryside and because they are under the countryside you wouldn't think of visiting them!!
As you drive down the imaginatively named Waitomo Caves Road you come to the 'Long Black Cafe' the home of 'The Legendary Black Water Rafting Co.' This is where our adventure will take place!!
...blank refuses to come to Waitomo as she suffers from claustrophobia, luckily for me I had arranged for a friend to come over from his travels in Oz to meet up for a week. I tell him the plan and he's intrigued and more importantly 'up for it'.
We leave Auckland early in the morning as we have plumped for the 5 hour adventure called 'The Black Abyss'. This is the 'Rambo' rated tour guaranteeing you excitement and a soaking. Other shorter ... more
New Zealand is 'THE' adrenaline sport destination in the world and is well known for bungy jumping, skydiving, mountain biking and white water rafting....but have you heard of the ominous sounding Black Water Rafting?
About 3 hours South of Auckland and just South of Hamilton you can turn off of motorway 3 and head towards Waitomo Caves. The Waitomo Caves are a large network of limestone caves set in the rolling New Zealand countryside and because they are under the countryside you wouldn't think of visiting them!!
As you drive down the imaginatively named Waitomo Caves Road you come to the 'Long Black Cafe' the home of 'The Legendary Black Water Rafting Co.' This is where our adventure will take place!!
I'm in NZ on holiday with my other half and she point blank refuses to come to Waitomo as she suffers from claustrophobia, luckily for me I had arranged for a friend to come over from his travels in Oz to meet up for a week. I tell him the plan and he's intrigued and more importantly 'up for it'.
We leave Auckland early in the morning as we have plumped for the 5 hour adventure called 'The Black Abyss'. This is the 'Rambo' rated tour guaranteeing you excitement and a soaking. Other shorter and less demanding tours are available 'Black Labyrinth' (NZ$90), 'Waitomo Glow Worm Caves', 'Ruakiri Cave' and 'Aranui' (less than NZ$60). Basically there is a tour for every age group and level of fitness. We have pre-booked the 11:00am tour. There are daily tours starting daily at 9:30am, 11:00am, 1:00pm, 2:30pm. We park up and enter the 'Long Black Cafe' to a warm Kiwi welcome. The Cafe serves up good value hearty Kiwi fayre steaming hot coffee and a mean breakfast which we duly devour.
Now the advertised price for this tour is NZ$175, however, there are offers all over the place to get discounts, so look out for them at backpackers hostels, online, in brochures and at Tourist Information Shops. We have got a 2 for 1 deal which is a steal!! We pay up our dosh and wait for our group to be called up. Groups are limited to 8 people for safety but could equally be 1 or 2 dependant upon the season so it is definitely advisable to book in advance. Our group is taken out back to be kitted out with our safety equipment and for a briefing on what to expect.
All of the equipment is provided, so all you need to bring is a towel and your swimmers. Our 2 professional guides get us kitted out in wetsuits, cut-off wellies, caving helmets and a safety harness each. We look ridiculous!! Our hosts are light-hearted and the banter amongst the group is lively. Our group is a mixed bag and consists of all Brits: 2 Leeds boys in their 30's, a father and his teenage daughter and a couple in their forties, plus us two, late 20's early 30's.
Once we are all kitted up we are loaded into a minibus and driven a kilometre up on to the hill-side. We are now all given a lesson on the principles of abseiling and the use of our safety harnesses. We must look a sight in our wetsuits walking backwards down a gentle slope in a field holding ropes as if our lives depend upon it. Once our 2 guides, are happy that everyone knows what they are doing we are led to a metal gantry in a bush!!
The lead guide promptly disappears down a hole. One by one my fellow explorers are attached to the line going down this hole and descend out of sight. It's my turn and I clip on my 'ladder' and begin my 37m descent into a narrow limestone hole that shrinks down to the width of my shoulders before opening out into a huge black hole. I am literally hanging in mid-air with the torches of my fellow explorers way down below me. The rock formation of this hole is amazing, carved out by water over thousands of years. Once everyone is down and accounted for it's off down a narrow tunnel where we pause to clip our safety lines on to a steel safety cable. Looking down I feel slightly uneasy as I am standing on a metal grill over a black hole. To make matters worse we are all told to switch off our 'head-lights' to fully appreciate just how dark it is...and boy oh boy it is pitch black and I mean 'pitch' black. The air is cool and the sound of water dripping is all around. One by one we are attached to a zip line and sent flying down through the dark into a huge cavern where we are detached to sit and wait to regroup.
Looking around we can see delicate rock formations, stalactites and stalagmites which have been formed over thousands of years. You can also see the animal life that the caves are famous for, for as you look up to the ceiling of the huge cavern and switch off your torches it is like gazing at a night sky. Every star is the light from one of the thousands of glow worms. It's hot drink, biscuit and chocolate time. The warm drink is gratefully recieved as it is certainly on the cool side down here. This is no preparation for what's in store for us next.
We walk to the edge of a 3m drop and all you can see below is still 'black water', but what did we expect? I'm handed a tractor tyre inner tube which I stick my bum into and promptly hurl myself off into the black below. I hit the water and travel a meter or so beneath the surface my immediate reaction is OH MY GOD!! IT'S FREEEEEEEEEEZING!! All around you can hear the slapping of rubber tubes hitting the water and the screams of shock as our comrades hit the cold water (10C - 14C) . At this point I was glad I hadn't watched 'The Descent' before this as you have no idea how deep the water is in the channels and what could be lurking in such a place.
For now we paddle down the tunnel in our rubber rings gazing at nature's bio-fluorescent light display. Everyone links into a chain of tubers, legs under the arms of the person in front like some wierd subterraneous caterpillar. So we relax as our guides drag us down a dark tunnel for a lesson in the life and times of the Waitomo Glow worm. Our guides are very knowledgeable and are keen to answer peoples questions on the glow worms and the history of the caves themselves. Our lesson complete and we are dragged back up the tunnel to where we entered the freezing water. We are forced to throw our tubes back up the rock wall that we had jumped from.
Errr wait a minute....no floatation device???? Now we're walking, wading and even swimming down the cave. The centre of the channel is so deep that you can't even touch the bottom. This is beyond my wildest dreams, adventure sporting at its best. We proceed down the cavern and swim through further caverns with low ceilings. The thought of what would happen in a flash flood is in the back of your mind. The water shallows and we haul ourselves up and walk down yet another tunnel, taking care not to trip on the uneven surface. Our guides stop to show us a fossilized whale bone in the floor of the tunnel whilst chocolate is handed around and we marvel over how this was once the ocean floor. Next up is more swimming followed by a section of tunnels that have you bent over due to their height or lack of it. As we negotiate these tunnels we pass another group doing the less intensive 'Black Labyrinth' tour. So now we are nearing our end and this is definitely not an anticlimax.
In the distance the sound of running water is getting louder and as we turn a corner we are greeted by an underground waterfall coming down through the limestone roof. Now the only way out is up the waterfall through the falling water!! I'm first up and the guide expertly explains where my feet should go and where my handholds are. I'm scared of heights and climbing isn't my forte, I'm climbing an underground waterfall and water is pouring over me. Adrenaline pumping through my veins and I reach the summit, crawling through a gap less than a metre high into a small cave pool which is feeding the waterfall. Here I sit crouched below the low roof greeting each of the group as they appear one by one. Each successive person through the hole is greeted by a cheer from the rest of the group, such is the sense of achievement!! The guide leads us crawling off down the tunnel where we are greeted by yet another waterfall. We are set a final challenge by our guides: to climb the waterfall and at the top switch off our torches and crawl to daylight. This waterfall fills me with less dread and as I reach the top of the fall I enter a low tunnel and switch off my light. I am on my hands and knees in ice cold water in pitch black darkness. Where the hell is this daylight? I crawl along for about 30 metres and the tunnel hangs a left. In the distance is an opening of daylight which I gratefully crawl towards. One last climb over some boulders and out through a freshwater pool and I am standing in the NZ sunshine.
As the group exit the cave system everyone is buzzing and agreeing that this is probably the best thing that they've ever done. We walk out through a copse of trees and back around to the sink hole we entered 3 hours previous. A minibus transports us back to the 'Long Black Cafe' where we return our equipment and make welcome use of the glorious hot showers.
Back in the Cafe we are assigned a table and help ourselves to complimentary hot soup and bagels. Everyone is still on a high and the chat of the days experience is non-stop. Extremely happy, tired and with full bellies we leave the Cafe but not before I buy some postcards and a 'Legendary Black Water Rafting Co.' cap so that I can tell the story to anyone who asks what black water rafting is!!
Summary
Of all the activities I have done in New Zealand this tops them all. An unbelievable experience and definitely worth the money. The only downer is that you can't take a camera down there. If you aren't up to the rigours of the 'Black Abyss' or the 'Black Labyrinth' then go along for the scenic cave tours and the glow worms, you won't be disappointed.
