On Monday we got up and had breakfast and prepared ourselves for our Black Water Rafting trip. We set off a little early so that we could have a little potter when we got to Waitomo. We stopped off on the way in a little village where Rachel bought herself a new dress (another one). When we then got to Waitomo we had a little look around but there really wasn't much to do, so we had our lunch and went round the shop in the Rafting centre.

At 2pm we were called to get ready for our trip. We changed into our swimmers and then were given wetsuits, wet socks, shoes, wet jackets and a fleece to wear. We were then given a helmet and some absailing gear. We then hopped in a van and were driven to the cave entrance. We were first given a bit of training down a grass wall and how to use the absailing gear. Then it was time to enter the cave. First we had to absail down to the bottom going through a really tight bit. At the bottom you could see glow worms all over the cave. When everyone reached the bottom we scrambled through some rocks and planks to get to a flying fox. We had to each get the flying fox down to another chamber…but in the dark! It was cool as you could see the glow worms again. We were then given some flap jack and hot chocolate for energy.

Next was the black water rafting. We were given a tube and we had to stand 2 meters above the river and jump into the water landing on our tubes. We then pulled ourselves along the wall to reach the end of the caves little river. Our tour leader then got us to turn off our lights and we could see lost of glow worms. She then told us a bit about them. We then all linked tubes and the tour leader pulled us back down the river for a peaceful ride looking at the glow worms in the pitch black.

We returned back to where we'd started and dumped our tubes. Then we headed through the caves on foot following the river, with the water varying sometimes to our ankles then sometimes up to our necks. We had to climb a few small water falls, slide down some waterfalls, swim at parts and crawl through a very tight gap too. The last challenge was to climb a 3 big water fall to get out the cave, Rachel along with the other girls in the group decided this was a bit too much and went an alternative scrambling route. After the 3rd waterfall, we came out into an opening surrounded by trees, with a clear black sky above with stars glistening. We were then returned to the tour centre for hot showers and a tomato soup and bagel mmm. We drove home and had another bite to eat before bed.