We woke up nice and early in Rotorua and jumped on to the bus to make our way towards Waitomo. Before we left we went to the Agridome outside of Rotorua, kind of like a farm center. We were given the option of going to see a show that was one about sheep and cows and sheering and milking. I really didn't want to go but we all would have been sitting around for ages doing nothing otherwise so I grudgingly payed the 13 dollars for a ticket. I was really suprised but it was actually quite good. The guy who was presenting it made it fairly fun and I learned some new stuff about farms.
After we left Rotorua our driver told us we would only have one stop, in Otorohanga, and this was only to collect supplies since Waitomo doesnt have any shops! It's basically a village in the middle of no where and is famous for one thing; its caves.
We arrived in Waitomo not long after lunch time, it's not too far way from Rotorua. Our driver told us that, those of us who had signed up for black water rafting, would be picked up in an hour. I was still really tired from the early start and the activities form the past few days and I could've done with a rest.
A van came to pick us up and took us to the Black Water Rafting Cafe, the companies base. Here we were kitted out, much like white water rafting the day before, except our wetsuits were much thicker and more padded, and we had to wear rediculous boots. The wetsuits were soaking wet and freezing which made putting them on horrible. Just to complete the look we had to stick a pair of old shorts on top of the wet suit to protect it, we all looked very silly.
We got back into the van and drove to the entrance of the cave we would be going into it. Outside it were loads of black rubber rings; our rafts. Our guides told us we had to find one that fitted, this ment standing bent over and seeing if your bum went nice and snugly into the middle. We were then told that inside the caves were 2 waterfalls which we would be jumping off of. I wasnt aware of this beforehand so I jobbyed my pants a little bit. We were shown how we should jump off them and given a practice from a wooden platform that went into the river. We had to walk up to the edge, turn around, hold the ring at our bums and then jump off backwards, far enough not to hit the rocks below. Pretty scary stuff, but I managed it find. With that done we were told some other saftey stuff, and shown how to make an "eel"; where evryone sat in their ring, put their legs round the person in fronts waist and held the person behinds feet.
With the basics sorted out we went right up to the cave enterance, a tiny little gap in some rocks. I hate confined spaces but for some reason I wasnt scared. We went inside, with the torches on our helmets turned on, and had a look around the cave. It was pretty amazing inside but the best was yet to come. We wandered in, clambering over rocks and through parts of the river that flows through the caves. We arrived at a deeper part of the river and had to sit in our rafts and flot/paddle our way underneath a cave wall, which I only just fit under!
We arrived at a narrow passageway and our guides had us all turn our helmet lights off. We looked up and, not far above our heads, were loads of little glow worms. Our guides told us a bit about them and then we continued on.
We jumped off of our first waterfall, made an "eel" at the bottom and then all floated through this massive cavern. The roof was absolutley covered in glow worms, such an amazing amazing sight. It didn't look real, kind of magical.
We got along to the second waterfall which was a bit scarier since there was a huge hole next to the part you jumped off that would have sucked you under. I missed it thankfully.
At the last part of the cave we all had our lights turned off and had to swim along to the exit, guided only by the glow worms which were alllll over the roof, it was so cool.
We all made it out thankfully and then headed back to their base on the van where we slipped out of our wetsuits and got free soup and bagels.
At night a few people that I've met on the kiwi buses and I went down to the one bar in Waitomo for a drink and a banter. Then we came home with the munchies and ate cereal out of a pan using a wooden spoon since we had no cutler, oh dear.
