Spelunkers Spelunking
As mentioned earlier, we had set Monday and Wednesday as busy days. While Monday was thermal wasteland day, Wednesday was dedicated to spelunking.
The Waitomo Caves region is riddled with underground passages that are populated by a variety of unique lifeforms, the most notable being the glow worms.
Glow worms are the larval stage of some kind of fly, blah de blah de blah - the guide decided to explain this stuff underground, and his accent combined with the echoes in the cave made the whole story mostly unintelligible, and to be honest I don't care that much about the lifecycle of these bugs. I did catch the big finish of the guide's spiel, which went like this: "So what we're looking at are cannibalistic shagging maggots that crap light". A pretty good finish. He should have started with it.
We signed up for the "TumuTumu Toobing" cave trip, run by Waitomo Adventures.
The trip started an hour late, so we had a little time to check out the caving museum which has a few interesting exhibits and is certainly worth the 15 or 20 minutes it takes to walk through.
The caving adventure operators do not allow cameras, so a verbal description of our underground trip will have to suffice for those interested.
The caving adventure began aboard a mini-bus which had at one time been a Japanese kindergarden bus - I kid you not ... the interior was festooned with cheerful balloon and ferris wheel graphics, and there was a large Hello Kitty (it's a cult thing) applique on the exit door.
The ride from the ticket centre to and from the caving site was the most exciting part of the trip (the rest was interesting, but not life-threatened exciting). Saying the Waitomo Caves region is very hilly is like saying Lake Ontario is a little wet. Except for the small flats on top of each hill, there isn't a natural level spot in the entire area. Once we turned off the main paved road, it became clear that the narrow gravel road had been carved from the edge of each hill with as little effort as possible.
A small effort has been made to make it seem that there is a fence to keep the bus from slipping off the edge of each hairpin turn and rolling down the two hundred foot hill (80 degree slope anyone?) but really, is anyone comforted by a couple of t-bar snow fence rods pounded into the gravel? Our group consisted of three travellers from Isreal, two from England, one from Holland, and oursleves. Fortunately for all concerned, none of the others (including Debbie) seemed to notice that their lives hung in the balance, and our trips there and back were without incident.
A small quonset hut had been erected on one of the small flat spots at the top of a hill, and inside the eight of us plus our two guides were outfitted with snug fitting wetsuits (very slimming! I just need to figure out how to work it into my regular outfit at work) and rubber boots (gum boots for those with an English bent). We also were issued a hard hat fitted with an LED light source.
Once everyone was equipped, we set out on a moderate hike through the surrounding highlands. As I said, the quonset was erected at the top, and the cave entrance was at the bottom. We trudged through several farm fields, and I am certain if an alien were watching at that moment, he/she/it would surely have wondered at the sanity of a group of people walking through the sunny fields, past the grazing sheep, in full wetsuits.
The entrance to the cave was at the bottom of a glade of lush trees, accessed by means of a ladder passing through a narrow cleft in the rock. The opening in the rock was barely the width of a large Sturgeon, and I am surprised in hindsight that there was no mention of this in the medical questionnaire we were forced to fill out before departing.
Once through the entrance slit, the cave opened up to a chamber 10 feet high, and 6 or 8 feet wide. A small stream passed through this room and exited through a passage that was tall enough for us to walk through upright. We congregated in an large chamber until the entire party had passed into the cave, the only illumination supplied by the lights of our helmets.
In all truthfulness, I fully expected a more genteel kind of experience. I thought there would be electric lights providing broad illumination for most of the journey, with the headlamps provided to give us access to the dark caves in which resided the glow worms. This was not to be the case.
This trip was to be genuine cave walking with nothing to rely upon except the lights we carried and the experience of the guides we were provided with. Although objectively there are lots of things that can go wrong on a 1 km underground journey, our two guides (Duane and Sheldon) were very personable and so confident and comfortable that in all honesty we never got any feeling that there was any danger in what we were doing.
I won't bore you with the details of our trek through the dark cave, but suffice to say we walked out into the light at the end very happy to have made the journey. There were lots of different topologies in the cave and a few challenging stretches combined with several caves that were an easy walk, filled with glowing spots along the ceiling provided by the glow worms. All in all, I would highly recommend this attraction for anyone having moderate fitness and a tolerance for closed spaces.
Waitomo Caves area has several tour operators that offer more and less challenging tours and, again, I would higly recommend that anyone travelling to NZ visit this area.
Debbie commented as we were driving back (the 3 hour (each way) drive there and back is a whole other entry) that no such attraction could possibly survive in litigious North American market and she's absolutely correct. The opportunities for a visitor to seriously injure him/herself are numerous and no business in North America could survive the first lawsuit, waiver or no waiver.
On the way back we did stop to take some pictures of a ridiculously picturesque farm scene which I will share with you now.
Until next time
Don
The Waitomo Caves region is riddled with underground passages that are populated by a variety of unique lifeforms, the most notable being the glow worms.
Glow worms are the larval stage of some kind of fly, blah de blah de blah - the guide decided to explain this stuff underground, and his accent combined with the echoes in the cave made the whole story mostly unintelligible, and to be honest I don't care that much about the lifecycle of these bugs. I did catch the big finish of the guide's spiel, which went like this: "So what we're looking at are cannibalistic shagging maggots that crap light". A pretty good finish. He should have started with it.
We signed up for the "TumuTumu Toobing" cave trip, run by Waitomo Adventures.
The trip started an hour late, so we had a little time to check out the caving museum which has a few interesting exhibits and is certainly worth the 15 or 20 minutes it takes to walk through.
The caving adventure operators do not allow cameras, so a verbal description of our underground trip will have to suffice for those interested.
The caving adventure began aboard a mini-bus which had at one time been a Japanese kindergarden bus - I kid you not ... the interior was festooned with cheerful balloon and ferris wheel graphics, and there was a large Hello Kitty (it's a cult thing) applique on the exit door.
The ride from the ticket centre to and from the caving site was the most exciting part of the trip (the rest was interesting, but not life-threatened exciting). Saying the Waitomo Caves region is very hilly is like saying Lake Ontario is a little wet. Except for the small flats on top of each hill, there isn't a natural level spot in the entire area. Once we turned off the main paved road, it became clear that the narrow gravel road had been carved from the edge of each hill with as little effort as possible.
A small effort has been made to make it seem that there is a fence to keep the bus from slipping off the edge of each hairpin turn and rolling down the two hundred foot hill (80 degree slope anyone?) but really, is anyone comforted by a couple of t-bar snow fence rods pounded into the gravel? Our group consisted of three travellers from Isreal, two from England, one from Holland, and oursleves. Fortunately for all concerned, none of the others (including Debbie) seemed to notice that their lives hung in the balance, and our trips there and back were without incident.
A small quonset hut had been erected on one of the small flat spots at the top of a hill, and inside the eight of us plus our two guides were outfitted with snug fitting wetsuits (very slimming! I just need to figure out how to work it into my regular outfit at work) and rubber boots (gum boots for those with an English bent). We also were issued a hard hat fitted with an LED light source.
Once everyone was equipped, we set out on a moderate hike through the surrounding highlands. As I said, the quonset was erected at the top, and the cave entrance was at the bottom. We trudged through several farm fields, and I am certain if an alien were watching at that moment, he/she/it would surely have wondered at the sanity of a group of people walking through the sunny fields, past the grazing sheep, in full wetsuits.
The entrance to the cave was at the bottom of a glade of lush trees, accessed by means of a ladder passing through a narrow cleft in the rock. The opening in the rock was barely the width of a large Sturgeon, and I am surprised in hindsight that there was no mention of this in the medical questionnaire we were forced to fill out before departing.
Once through the entrance slit, the cave opened up to a chamber 10 feet high, and 6 or 8 feet wide. A small stream passed through this room and exited through a passage that was tall enough for us to walk through upright. We congregated in an large chamber until the entire party had passed into the cave, the only illumination supplied by the lights of our helmets.
In all truthfulness, I fully expected a more genteel kind of experience. I thought there would be electric lights providing broad illumination for most of the journey, with the headlamps provided to give us access to the dark caves in which resided the glow worms. This was not to be the case.
This trip was to be genuine cave walking with nothing to rely upon except the lights we carried and the experience of the guides we were provided with. Although objectively there are lots of things that can go wrong on a 1 km underground journey, our two guides (Duane and Sheldon) were very personable and so confident and comfortable that in all honesty we never got any feeling that there was any danger in what we were doing.
I won't bore you with the details of our trek through the dark cave, but suffice to say we walked out into the light at the end very happy to have made the journey. There were lots of different topologies in the cave and a few challenging stretches combined with several caves that were an easy walk, filled with glowing spots along the ceiling provided by the glow worms. All in all, I would highly recommend this attraction for anyone having moderate fitness and a tolerance for closed spaces.
Waitomo Caves area has several tour operators that offer more and less challenging tours and, again, I would higly recommend that anyone travelling to NZ visit this area.
Debbie commented as we were driving back (the 3 hour (each way) drive there and back is a whole other entry) that no such attraction could possibly survive in litigious North American market and she's absolutely correct. The opportunities for a visitor to seriously injure him/herself are numerous and no business in North America could survive the first lawsuit, waiver or no waiver.
On the way back we did stop to take some pictures of a ridiculously picturesque farm scene which I will share with you now.
Until next time
Don
posted by Don at
6:20 pm
3 Comments:
That picture is worthy of framing.
Terry
By
Anonymous, at 9:40 am
the tu mu tumu tour,sounds fascinating.dark caves,with no natural light,but well worth it to see the glow worms illuminating the cave.
"Debbie",your nuckles must be pretty white by now,can you say,hairpin turns.Makes you feel alive,doesn't it?
By
Anonymous, at 10:11 pm
We kind of thought that it would be a not too intense trip. These New Zealander's are a hearty folk and everything is treated as a sport - including driving. Shocking to me that there are still 4 million of them alive!
It is indeed a beautiful picture Terry. The scenery throughout has been absolutely spectacular.
By
Anonymous, at 4:56 am
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