Rap, Raft and Rock
Trip Start
Jan 19, 2006
1
111
330
Trip End
Jan 19, 2007
Waitomo,
New Zealand
Friday, May 26, 2006
The trip involved abseiling (or a rap) 30 metres down into a cavern followed by blackwater rafting (on an inner tube) and then rock climbing back up the cave at the end. We were doing this with 2 other people from Yorkshire and were suitably kitted out in wetsuits and wellies which was incredibly attractive all round. I opted to go first on the abseil as I hate waiting and it was good fun going down into the cave which was cathedral like (as advertised) we then walked up into the caves and turned off our torches to reveal hundreds of glow worms (was much better than our previous experience). Then it was going in our inner tubes down the river (which was quite low) to some caves with great rock formations and stalactites etc
1 - Fetching attire
. We tried to do some caving going through very narrow caves and out the other side etc which I managed to do some of but was scared of getting stuck (am on a diet again though!) More gliding down the caves in our tubes with the torches off which was fun and quite fast at times. At the end of this our guide pretended to leave us in a cave but we located him again and we wandered back out of the caves climbing over rocks and down some pretty hairy formations to the start. Then it was my turn to go first climbing up the rock (with a safety rope fortunately) which was actually quite good fun as there were loads of ledges to grab hold of. By the end we were surprisingly not cold but pretty hot and quite tired!Started driving back to Lake Taupo having much-needed lunch on the way in the forest and it started to rain again as we got here. Have re-established ourselves in our 'campsite' but have new neighbours now!
Are off to do some thermal sites tomorrow and then Rotorua. Gales predicted the next few days but fingers crossed will get better next week as starting to feel like its a bank holiday weekend here!
