Going Deep Underground

Lizzy mentioned we had landed safely and unharmed from the skydive and that it was a truly amazing experience but I just thought I would jot down my take on it.I wasn't nervous at all until we reached 15,000 ft and they opened the back door of the plane and we saw people falling out of the back one by one.Then……my turn.We got to the edge of the plane, I tucked my feet under the door opening and then we tipped forward and hurtled towards the ground.Absolutely fantastic, so loud with the wind rushing passed you and then when the chute opened it became very quiet and the views right across the lake were awesome.The best experience yet.

We left Taupo in search of our next adventure - I could get used to this adrenalin lifestyle - Black Water Rafting at the Waitomo Caves and decided to head there in the evening so we were ready to book on to the next day early.On the drive there the landscape was great - all the hills were exactly out of the Lord of the Rings -a true hobbit habitat!

On our arrival in Waitomo we did the usual 20kms of driving around saying - will we be safe parking up here or not.Finally, we stumbled across a lay by with no signs saying we couldn't camp there so we parked up and got the stove out for a well earned tuna omelette.Not bad at all.

We woke early with freezing cold toes - all the edges of the bed seem to get unbelievably cold and by about 5am we are both wrapped in the duvet in the middle of the bed trying not to touch the outer edges!Not such a bad thing though as we seems to be going to sleep around 9pm so by 6ish we have had quite a lot of sleep.

We drove to the visitor centre with a budget in mind and then booked up something much more expensive with the attitude - "well, if we're going to do it, we may as well do a good one" and managed to get on to the Black Water Rafting at 10am with a company called Rap, Raft and Rock!Having been so cold over night we were glutens for punishment as we donned some pretty hideous wet suits to go tubing and jumping around in some underground cave river.This adventure began with a 30m abseil in to the cave - good fun and surprisingly easy after a skydive!

We then learned about the 1000's of glowworms that live in the caves and switched off our head torches so we were in complete darkness.We then looked up and saw the 1000's and 1000's of bright specs of light - it was like being outside on a really clear night and seeing huge amounts of stars.

To this point we had only been knee deep in the icy water but now it was time to submerge ourselves a little further!We sat back in the rubber tubes and drifted down the under ground river with our lights off so that we could relax and admire the glowing worms on the ceiling of the cave.I should have introduced our guide, Steve, a big lad who had recently returned from fighting in Afghanistan and now wanted a crazy bit of fun before figuring out what he wanted to do.

This meant that he got a little sadistic and made us firstly jump off a huge rock in to the deepest part of the caves river.When you jumped in and went fully under it was impossible to scream at him as you re surfaced as your breath had been completely taken away by the cold!We then carried on walking through the water and he made us crawl through very tight gaps and through under ground holes which we only just big enough to squeeze through.Having said that, he'd ask Lizzy to make it look like a bit of a struggle as she glided through the gaps with ease - I suppose in this environment being smaller is a big advantage!He then rewarded us with a hot drink (that was pretty much hot lucozade sport) and some Dairy Milk chocolate - this was so good having not had chocolate for a while!

In order to get back up to ground level we had to harness ourselves up and climb up a 30m rock face.Lizzy was up first and climbed steadily up the rocks and reached the top no problem.I was next and having seen Steve and Lizzy climb up, knew my route so climbed up quite speedily back to the sunshine.

A hot shower waited for us back at the changing rooms, which was well earned and very rewarding.

We had spied in one of our guides a very cheap campsite with showers and a kitchen so we headed there and realised why it was so cheap.It was a proper grotty trailer park - but hey we're living in a van so we didn't complain - especially when we went to pay in the morning and they charged us $5 to little - we didn't quibble, we sped off towards Rotorua before they realised, never to be seen again.

Sam