Waitomo

The following morning we jumped back on the bus and headed towards Waitomo which is known for its amazing underground caves. We arrived at around 1.30pm and headed straight to the people who we would be caving with. We got suited and booted up, head to toe in wetsuit gear as it was going to be very cold underground. We then got chucked in the back of a mini bus for around a 10min drive to the caves J It started off with a 38 meter abseil down into the caves which we all found the hardest part due to us going down into pitch black not knowing where we were going. Once down we walked through some caves looking at the stalagmites, glow worms and fossils in the rocks. We soon came to a cliff, so we had to zip wire into pitch black not knowing where we would be ending up, slightly strange feeling. Once you get taken off the zip wire you take a seat and have a look around in the pitch black, it's simply unreal the amount of glow worms there are on the ceiling and walls around you. It's like looking up at the sky on a really clear night but the stars are a turquoise colour. We then jumped off a 3meter ledge into water and had to land on the inflatable ring we had been given, it made the biggest bang due to the noise echoing around the caves. Brilliant fun though. We soon paddled up steam to see some more amazing things and they also explained how the glow worms actually glow but it's too long to explain over text, weird though. Once that was done we all got into a big train, turned off our lights and starred at the walls while slowly floating down stream. It was so peaceful and luminous, we loved it. We soon got to the tight and claustrophobic part of the cave; we were squeezing though tunnels on our hands and knees while half submerged in water. If you were a larger person you would have no chance. We then moved onto the 5meter waterfalls we had to climb up with no ropes, while having a lot of water smashing into us. We all made it safe and sound with no injuries but it was tricky, trust us the adrenaline was pumping after that. We soon came out of the last cave and strangely found ourselves outside, but we didn't realise this until an instructor told us because it was dark by the time we had finished the tour. We got a lift back to our hostel and we all had a hot shower as we were frozen to the core. We then had a chilled night and played pool, then hit the sack J