Caves

I got up this morning and said goodbye to my new friend Tamara and headed out on the road to Waitamo. I had booked a tubing tour the day before and was looking forward to it. Although it was nothing that I had expected. I figured I would tube the rivers in the caves in the dark with some light from a head lamp or something. But as I checked in just after noon, I was in for a surprise. They took us down to a small gathering place and gave us neoprene wetsuits, a neoprene jacket, booties and helmets with lights on them. I felt like the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man in Ghostbusters lol. It was fairly hard to walk in this get up they had me in, but I knew I would be warm in the cold ass water. There were only 7 of us on this tour which was nice because I feel like a larger group more than 10 would have been a bit hard with the information that I know now. We took a short minivan ride up to the top of the hill area where we would then do a bit of walking. Thank goodness that it was not hot out or these outfits would have been god awful! We got out and walked to the top of a hill that had a bunch of cows in it. The funny thing was, we all looked so out of place in our wetsuits on the top of a hill, I can only imagine what the cows might be thinking lol. We did a group photo and we were off to head into the cave. I know you may be thinking, a cave at the top of a hill, well the cave we were going in, was 45 feet under us and runs for over 10 miles. Our guide Rich showed us the distance where we start and where we ended, and I thought jeesh that is short. BUT, it was actually 1 mile worth of cave to go through to get to the end. Apparently when people lived on these lands a long time ago they didn’t know that they were cave systems under their property. Every once in a while a cow or sheep or something would go missing. Come to find out, they had stumbled into a hole in the ground and down into the caving system they went. So we got to the start of our journey and grabbed a small black inner tube, in which I jokingly asked if it was going to hold me lol.

Down a bunch of steps we went into the darkness. We turned on the lights on our lamps on our helmets and followed Rich walking through some of the cave. There wasn’t any water yet, which I was fine with, I was not too keen on getting into cold water. We stopped and were asked to turn our lights off which we did, and as soon as our eyes adjusted we could see all these little bioluminescent lights all over the walls and ceilings. They were a tealish green that glowed, kind of like the stars that we used to stick to our ceilings when we were little. We turned our lights back on and Rich showed us where the glow worms were and all of their little “webs” they create. It looked like a bunch of spit drips just hanging from the ceiling. That is the only way I can describe it. But they are strings of sticky stuff that the glow worms create and hang down to catch flies, mosquitoes and so forth that wander into the cave. Apparently they can have up to 40 of these things hanging in around where they are. They have a 9 month life span up on the walls and ceilings, and they catch things and eat them, what makes the flies and what not get into their drips, is the bioluminescent light that is their rear end. This is where it gets really icky! Hopefully I get this right, they eat the bugs they catch and in turn it creates poop so to speak and it lights up. Hahaha that is the worst way to describe this and it sounds so not technical but that is what I got from our lecture in the cave. Ha! When I have internet I will have to relook it up just to make sure. So anyway, you don’t want to look up at the ceilings in awe cause you could end up with something in your mouth. The glow worms after the 9 months, make themselves into a cocoon, like a butterfly does, and they incubate in there for 15 days, when they come out they are flies. This is where it gets creepy again. As glowworms, they have mouths to eat, but when they are born as flies, they have no mouths, their only purpose is to find a mate to lay eggs and then they die. So these little things live in total just under 1 year. And what is even more bizarre is that they technically are cannibals because if one of them as a fly gets stuck in the drip thing, they will eat it. So, now that you have an understand of what I was looking at and what it does we move onto the rest of my tour.

We then kept walking till we reached water where we would submerge ourselves in it. Rich told us to put the tube around our waists and get in a line where you would put your feet on the person’s tube in front of you and they hold onto you. So of course I was the little ole caboose lol. Once we were all connected he said turn off your lights. Oh crap the dark in dark water is freaky enough now turning off our lights and no one was behind me….gah! We all leaned back a bit and Rich pulled us along and we got the awesome opportunity to gaze up at the ceilings and walls at all of the little glow worms. It was stunning! It felt like you were just drifting along in outer space looking at all of the stars, galaxies and the milky way. I wasn’t cold like I thought I would be so the suit was doing its job, I could just relax and look at the glow worms while being pulled along. It was very calming in a bizarre way. I am not someone who would go spelunking (cave exploring) is just not for me. Being in total dark is creepy and when you know what is down there (after the fact) it is even more creepy. But floating along without a care in the world other than staying with the group was awesome. Every once in a while you may bump into a wall but you either bounce off or push off.

We had the opportunity to “plop” for a lack of better words backwards onto our tubes from about 6 feet up down into a shallow pool at the bottom. We then got carried along again in the dark until we got to a another waterfall that we had to navigate, but this time, there was a waterslide to go down. It made me feel like I was in the movie Goonies for a bit lol. I went down the slide and ended up with ears, mouth and wet suit full of cold water, but I wouldn’t trade it in for anything! We finished off our tour shortly after that and made our way back to the top to leave our tubes and get a hot shower. I was thankful for that because who knows when my next one would be.

They gave us hot chocolate and emailed us pictures that they took of us while on the trip. It may have cost me a bit of money, but it was so worth it! I had looked at other ways to see glowworms and none of them really appealed to me, and I guess I didn’t realize that I would have this opportunity via the tubing so it was even more special. I look forward to seeing the pictures when I get internet access and I will make sure to post them when I have them.

I was debating going to see Hobbiton (where they filmed the Hobbit and the Shire and what not) but I didn’t really want to pay for it so I bypassed the idea and headed towards Rotoura. I am camped now in a multiuse park in the car, waiting for the rain to stop so that I can set up my lovely air mattress in the car and read my book. Here is to a good night’s sleep, hopefully!

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