Wake up, pack up our stuff, hop in the car. Off to Waitomo Caves!
We made a reservation to visit the caves a couple of months ahead of time, so even though we arrived at Waitomo early in the morning we had to wait a couple of hours to begin our tour. We used the time to eat a bit of lunch (the last of or seafood salad sandwich makings) and to feed the birds in the park. It would have been an idyllic morning if Anna and I weren’t in hayfever hell and melting out of our noses.
Eventually we made our way up to the tour office, shoved our faces in the ice cream freezer, then scurried into the nearby woods to escape the pollen and enjoy our frozen treats.
We had a reservation for the four hour Lost World tour. The price was a bit exorbitant (about $250 NZ each) but we skimped on other road trip expenses to make up for it. You only live once, eh?
The tour involved a 100 meter (328 foot) abseil (reppel) which took about half of an hour, and then a quick hike along the bottom of the cavern. It felt like a journey to the center of the earth, but thankfully without Brendan Frasier mucking it up. Instead we shared the tour with a fun middle aged Dutch couple. The husband was a P.E. teacher, and the wife a painter. They were full of questions and hilarious commentary.
My favorite part of the tour was when we wandered into the darkest part of the cavern and turned out our head lamps. The ceiling of the cave was a constellation of glow worms. I could actually make out Anna’s features by the glow of worm butts. Beautiful! I’ve always been fascinated with glow worms, so it was a pretty amazing moment for me. They’re incredible creatures - unless you see them with the lights on – then they look like living loogies.
Unfortunately they didn’t allow cameras in the cave, so the following pictures are from a CD that they sell after the tour. They said that it was to keep their guests from destroying their personal possessions, but I really think it’s so they could charge for the picture packs afterward.
During the last leg of the tour there was a narrow ladder that had to be scaled to get out of the cavern. I was the last to climb the ladder, so I was left down in the dark alone. It’s a damned good thing I’m not achluophobic! The rungs of the ladder were covered with mud from four others climbing it before me. There was one point, about half way up the ascent, where one of my hands slipped off the rungs. Even though I was harnessed in with a rope, it gave me quite a fright, and I hugged the ladder for the remainder of the climb. My biceps were killing me by the time I reached the top!
Here were are on our descent, and then after climbing out way back out of the cave.
All four of us stalwart tourists posing for the camera.
After heading back into the above-ground world (and the lurking cloud of pollen) we jumped in the car and made a bee-line straight back to Auckland for some well deserved rest and relaxation.
THE END
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