We started by getting kitted out - wetsuits, harnesses, etc, Sarah said I looked right at home!We were then lead to a big hole in the ground, 27m deep. I was first to abseil down into the depths below where an underground river was waiting for me! The abseil was great fun and I had nearly as much fun watching Sarah come down after me, she did really well considering she had never done it before, although she did crash into the rock face!

We were given a big tyre inner-tube each and told to walk upstream into the black abyss. We walked quite a way until we came to a big cavernous space where we all turned out our lights. The roof of the caves looked more and more starry as your eyes became accustomed to the dark, the number of these tiny dots of light was amazing. Thousands of glow worms were on the roof and walls of the caves, they feed on flies that come out of the water it is a truly amazing sight, the sheer number of them was unreal.

Still in the dark we jumped into the inner-tubes and floated down the underground river, this was great fun you didn't know what was coming next from time to time you could just hear gushing water - yet another rapid to zoom down!! After going quite a way down the caves that were still lined with glow worms we left our tubes on the side ready for a spot of caving. Sarah being a little claustrophobic was quite scared about this, after squeezing or more falling through the first gap that was half under water she was full of confidence and nothing posed a problem! I kept thinking that I used to get paid for doing stuff like this with youth work and now I am paying for it, maybe a little disgruntled!!

We got back to the entrance and had a 20m climb to get up and out. Have you ever tried climbing in wellies!? Thankfully it turned out to be more of a scramble than full on climbing and we both made it up with no real problems. Our first adrenalin filled activity in NZ had gone smoothly; hopefully this would be a sign of things to come!! We had a nice hot shower and some soup before heading off in the dark towards the Coromandel Peninsula to see Cathedral Cove and Hot Water Beach.

Lots of love

A&S xx