Waitomo caving & abseiling
Caving & abseiling Waitomo caves December 06
Jack here, today we went caving that was great fun. Granny and Grandpa sent us $$ for Christmas
which we decided to use at Waitomo. Our first trip in the morning was black water rafting and we rafted on inner tubes through a cave system that was full of glow-worms and even an eel. In the middle of the caves we had a hot drink and some chocolate to warm up before going into the water again. We tubed in the dark and you couldn't see a thing, it was pitch dark unless, we were under the glow-worms which did light up the tunnel. We changed out of the wet suits had lunch and then went for our second trip to St Benedict's caverns. First of all we had to abseil on our own down a crack in the rock which was 60m into a tunnel. The crack was really tight in places and Dad just made it. We then had to walk over a 3-4m log as the tunnel bottom had collapsed. On the way through the cave system we saw loads of stalagmites and stalagtites. The exciting bit was in St Benedict's which is a huge cavern only discovered 20yrs ago. To protect the cavern we had to go on a flying fox for 80-100m to keep us off the ground. Dad had to go first and the scary bit was we had to do it in the pitch dark. It was fun though. We walked on a bit until we came to a big stalagmite that was thousands of years old! We walked up some stairs and into an air lock that was cylinder shaped and we all squeezed in and shut the door. We opened the other door to find out we're outside. It was actually an air lock because the air would dry it out the stalagmites and stalagtites. We walked up the hill and into the van. I really enjoyed it. It was great fun!
Gary. We had a long day as we were up at 6am and didn't get home until 9pm. A good 10hrs kip that night. Another good NZ experience, thanks Mum and Dad. Oh, if you saw Billy Connoly in NZ he too did the flying fox through St Benedicts. An interesting 20secs in absolute darkness.
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