Part 4 of 3 - Waitomo Caves

So, we went and had another adventure in the series. Think of it like the extra "deleted" scenes from the DVD version of our lives (to be released by Christmas 2007).
Yesterday we woke up in Raglan and said our farewells to our more than generous hosts. The Frew family had been nice enough to let us into their home for a few days but it was time to move on. We drove about an hour and a half South from Raglan (which is not clockwise for those of you keeping track at home) to the Waitomo Caves. Before we came to New Zealand this was one of the few things that we knew we were going to do. A friend of Carrie's had suggested them to us and told us that we needed to splurge and do the show shebang. Carrie's parents knew about this and were generous enough to give us the funding for this trip from Christmas (thank you very much Dave and Angie).
This trip was spectacular. It begins with a 27 meter absail (repelling) off of a cliff into the cave.

As you can see from the picture they gave us tons of goofy gear to put on for this trip. I'd never worn a wet suit but I'm pretty sure they are not flattering on anyone.
The absailing was fun. It certainly was something to be descending into this crevasse in the Earth.
At the bottom of the cliff was a river that came out of the rock on one side and went in on the other. We did a bit of hiking up stream and then floated back down in inner-tubes.

Then we floated past the entrance point and another 20 minutes down stream. We stopped for tea at the far end of the cave and then hiked back upstream.

When we arrived we turned our inner-tubes in for another rope and we had to rock climb back up the cliff to the daylight. All told we were in the cave for about three hours.
I know that all sounds fun and exciting but I've had to not mention one thing until the end because I wanted it to be the dramatic finale. The whole time we were in the cave the ceiling was absolutely covered in glow worms! It looked like the night sky from the middle of the desert during a lunar eclipse through night vision goggles. It was absolutely incredible! Ok... here's the picture.

This is a time exposure shot where we all had to stand really still. The guide shone a flash light on us for a bit so we would come out a bit brighter but otherwise this shot hasn't been altered. The glow worms were so bright that with out lights off we could still see each other's faces. It was amazing.

Matt