Day 53 23-7-2007 Waitomo Caves

The thought of doing an 100m abseil doesn't sound to scary (if you say it quick enough) and reading it from a magazine in the UK even less. But it was one of the major items on my list to do and God Damm i was going to do it.

As it is winter in New Zealand, and not that many people around. I was lucky that the instructor agreed to take me down to the caves, usually there is a minimum number of people for the lost world tour. I say tour, more experience. So i just was me and the guide and no more takers.

As was drove up, all around was small hilly pastures. A kinda cross between the dales and telly tubby land. This didn't seem too scary. We approached what looked like a large divot in the ground which had hole about 2 meters wide. On closer inspection of the hole, i could see deep in to a completely different world. A massive cavern of green lined walls stretching down and down to a river i could hear but hardly see. I remember thinking to myself "Oh shit big mistake, at least we don't go down this hole". " And thats only 70 meters" said the instructor. "We're going down 100". the instructor smiled as any colour in my face disappeared.

A few minutes later, we were at the gantry above the drop. Once clipped on, i had to lean back on to a horizontal pole the looked meters away from the gantry. Looking down between my feet. I could see a tiny river at the bottom (in reality the river wasn't that small). I decided to concentrate on the instructor, and with a brief demo of how to descend. I bent my knees, letting the rope take the strain. Wrapped my right leg around the rope for extra control (and somewhere to put my leg) and slowly pulled up the rope with my right hand, allowing the rope through the shackle (ill call it a shackle, it probably has a proper name, but at this time i didn't really care) causing myself to descend.

By the end of this trip i should have firm buttocks, the amount of clenching i had to do. Every so often the rope would turn me around to view the abyss. The cave was lined with plant life and layers of colorful rock formations, totally breathtaking (or was that because i still 80 m from ground zero).

At this point the instructor took out his camera and said "smile". "The guy is taking the piss" i thought. The decent took about 20 to 30 minutes. Once at the bottom i could relax. Or so i thought as the the abseil was only part of the lost world experience. The view fro the bottom was amazing. I could see the gantry as a blemish on the side of the small hole in the roof of the cave. I could also see the tiny hole that the instructor showed me prior to the drop.

For the next 45 minutes or so was trecking through the cave, passing numerous cave formations and fossilized oyster shells smoothed in to the rocks. Gradually the light from the holes in the roof disappeared, leaving the the lights only from or helmets to guide us through the caverns. Once we had reached our destination, we turned off out helmet lights and looked up to see thousands of glow worms illuminating the cave walls

We made our way back to the way out, which was in the form of a 30 vertical ladder which rose in to the darkness. Now a 30 ladder climb doesn't sound scary. But in total darkness (apart from the helmet light) on a rickety wet ladder, it is not as easy as you'd think. (i may have been attached to a harness but at the time, thats not much of a consolation)

Another 30 minutes or so walking through caves and i was back on grass. the drive back to Waitomo was short and quiet. I was probably still in shock at what I'd just done. So next bungy jumping. No F****** chance!