Black Friday

Friday (duh)

Mark and Cerine were up early to drive to Waitomo Caves, about an hour south of Hamilton. It is said that all New Zealanders visit the caves twice in their lives: once when they're kids and again when they take their own kids. But first, we made a slight detour to the Hamilton Gardens so Cerine could see them.

The gardens are different every time you go, as new things are blooming. We were pressed for time, so it was a whirlwind tour, but we saw all the highlights. Today's best sights included the Victorian Greenhouse, the Rose Garden (they were just past their peak), and the newly re-planted Indian Char Bagh Garden - easily Cerine's favorite.

This rose garden was a lot bigger than Tauranga's

A Persian carpet of flowers

Cerine hangin' with Romulus & Remus

Heading out of Hamilton, we were shocked to find ourselves on a four lane road in a rural area - most major highways in NZ away from Auckland and Wellington are just two lanes, with an occasional passing lane. Just as we were remarking on it, what should be ahead of us but a cow! In the middle of the road! Narrowly avoiding it, we continued on our way through the many road construction zones that seem to blanket the Waikato. We passed through tiny towns, each with its own claim to fame. For instance, Te Awamutu is "The Rose Town of NZ," and Otorohanga is the Kiwiana town.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwiana

We soon arrived at the Long Black Cafe (Long Black is a double espresso shot with hot water), home of The Legendary Black Water Rafting Company. You've heard of white water rafting, right? Well, Waitomo is the birthplace of black water rafting, essentially rafting in a dark cave. It's a bit of a misnomer, since it's actually tubing, and the water is crystal clear. While waiting for our tour to start, we grabbed some food at the cafe. Cerine had asked the girl manning the counter for something vegetarian, so the girl picked out a spinach & feta pie from the display case and heated it up, along with Mark's bacon & egg croissant. Cerine took a big, famished bite of the pie, and then another. Then she looked at it more closely - it had ham in it! Needless to say, she was not pleased. Mark wanted to roll on the floor laughing, but kept a straight face. Fortunately for Cerine, the clerk soon remedied her error, gave Cerine a refund, and comped another spinach & feta (sans ham) pie.

The One Ring is actually made of rubber, apparently

Our guides Matt and Stew were friendly, funny guys, and our tour group was limited to eight people. Six of the guests (including us) were from the States, and only two were Kiwis. The other four Americans were studying abroad in Dunedin (South Island) from Clemson University, so it was nice to hear a southern accent again. The guides issued us a litany of do's and don'ts, chief among them seemed to be: don't pee in your wetsuit! Soon, after much effort getting our wetsuits, harnesses, and helmets on and properly adjusted, we all piled into the van. Mark wished he'd remembered to bring his chums to hold his glasses on, but Matt fashioned him some out of a shoelace they kept around for just such purposes.

Getting squeezed in places we didn't know we had

Ready for some black water adventure!

The weather was perfect, which meant we were getting pretty hot in our full wetsuits (a Farmer John plus a jacket and booties), so the first stop was at the river, where we were each given an inner tube and marched to a dock about 2.5m above a river. Like paratroopers getting pushed out of a plane, one by one we were pushed backwards into the chilly water, the force of our landing nearly taking us completely under. But it was a great way to cool off! That's how some of the other tour packages start out and just continue down the river into the caves, but we piled back in the van to go to our next task: abseiling.

Graduates of abseiling training

After we'd all had a few tries at abseiling down a small hill, it was time for the real thing: a 35m (115 ft) drop through an hourglass-shaped tomo (vertical entrance shaft) into a black abyss. We all took it in turns, and the process of getting everyone down took a fair while...long enough for Mark to find a nearby bush and wriggle out of his wetsuit just enough for a pit stop, in anticipation of more icy water ahead. The narrowest part of the tomo was quite a tight squeeze, at least for Mark (must be Sherry's good cooking), requiring some twisting and contorting before you pop into a spacious cavern. Claustrophobics, acrophobics and nyctophobics be warned.

This is really high. Are we really doing this?

There was a metal platform at the bottom, and Stew was there to help unhook us from the rope. As we came down, we all gathered on rocks at the bottom of some stairs, with our headlamps turned off, watching the people coming after us. Once we were all safely in the cave, we filed down a narrow passage to another metal platform, at the end of which was a Flying Fox. We couldn't see the other end of the zip line, which lay in complete darkness.

Matt went first, so he could be on the other end to help us off, as Stew hooked our harnesses onto the line with practiced efficiency, "hold here, and here, don't touch this, turn off your light, now off you go!" With a shove and a leap, we were off into the darkness at a frightening speed. A rope serving as a bungy was attached to our Flying Fox, preventing us from smacking into the far wall of the big cavern. As you swing to a sudden stop, your senses come back to you, and it looks like you are all alone floating in outer space, but in fact the starry sky is thousands of tiny glowworms. It was one of those vivid moments that is forever burned into your brain...simply magical!

Once all of us were down, we turned our headlamps back on and checked out our surroundings. We were on a wide ledge overlooking a subterranean river. We didn't see any obvious way down, but no matter. We were all grateful to finally be rid of our wedgie-inducing harnesses. Although warm outside, there was a chill in the cave, and we all sat on the ledge as our hosts passed out welcome cups of hot chocolate and some muesli bars. Do you remember being told as a kid to wait half an hour after eating before getting in the water? Apparently, that advice never made it to New Zealand.

We hadn't noticed it before, but in a dark corner of the ledge was a pile of inner tubes. We all grabbed one, making sure to get one that our butts would fit through. Nothing worse than bobbing on top of the water like a cork and tipping over. There was a good 4m drop down to the water, with no easy climbing route, so we all looked a bit nervous as Stew explained the proper way to jump in. Firstly, you have to leap off the slippery rock far enough so that you don't kill yourself on it. Then you have to be coordinated enough to land with the inner tube flat on the water with your butt inside it. And did we mention it's not easy to do a really agile jump in a stiff wetsuit while trying to hold a bulky inner tube against your butt? Pitch too far forward or back and you'll flip when you hit the water; it's not too hard to calculate when jumping into a pool, but you've got a lot more time to rotate on a big drop like this. And they don't tell you how deep the water is, either. Alright, who's first?

"What the hell," thought Mark, who stepped forward to take the first plunge, although maybe everyone else just took a step back, like in those old Army movies. Had he been alone, he probably would have stared at the water below him for a good five minutes psyching himself into it, but peer pressure can be a useful thing sometimes. Everyone would have enjoyed seeing the American doctor make a fool of himself, but he wasn't about to give them the satisfaction, so off he went. If ever there was a leap of faith, this was it. KERSPLASH!!! Straight down into the water, completely submerged for a couple seconds, then bouncing back up as if he were on a trampoline. A picture perfect landing, but oh so cold!

As everyone else jumped off behind him, some with decidedly less graceful landings, the impact of the tubes on the water sounded just like gunshots echoing through the cave. Once we were all assembled in the river, we pulled ourselves upstream along a rope attached to the cave wall, single file. Mark was in the front, so he didn't have to worry about bumping into anyone, and we all soon turned off our headlamps to better see the glowworms. Once your eyes got adjusted, you could actually navigate by their eerie blue glow, roughly equivalent to the brightness of a half-moon. We stopped occasionally to get close-up looks at the worms, as Stew talked about their life cycle and feeding technique. They basically fish for moths with dozens of long, sticky silk threads that they suspend from cave ceilings and overhangs. When a moth or other insect gets stuck, they reel it in and suck out its juices. We actually got to see one feeding, which Stew said he's only seen a few times in as many years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arachnocampa

After tubing upstream for half an hour or so to see the part of Ruakuri Cave with the best glowworms, we did a U-turn and came back to our starting point. Tossing the tubes, we continued our caving adventure on foot. Although the water was clear as can be, you couldn't see where you were putting your feet because it was too dark, too turbulent, or there was too much glare from your headlamp. Not much of a concern on smooth ground, but on the uneven river bottom no two steps were the same, and it's amazing we all didn't twist our ankles. Most of our trek was in calf-deep water, but it wasn't all walking, as we had to do a fair bit of swimming in water over our heads, and a little bit of crawling on our belly when things got really tight. We even had to scoot sideways in an L-shape to get through a particularly awkward section.

Getting through a tight squeeze

After a while, we came across a metal slide like you'd see on a playground, and we all took a turn splashing down into the pool below it...backwards, of course. We stopped for chocolate bars and a hot fruity drink that Cerine likened to Tang, while our guides snapped some group pics. One guy in our group took a pee break upstream from us, but the rest of us including all the girls held on with iron bladders. Mark was glad he'd taken that last-minute stop when he did. As our journey continued, we were surprised to see a few experienced cavers emerge from a crack in the wall, looking like they'd been through quite an ordeal and completely covered in mud. We also saw a bunch of less experienced cavers with inner tubes tucked under their arms, coming towards us from what could only be the exit, as they looked pretty dry at this point.

This was a 5 second exposure lit only by our guides' headlamps. Hold still!

Plenty of eels in addition to glowworms

Why couldn't these be warm geothermal caves?

We were given the choice of taking the easy way out of the caves (the way the tubers had walked in), or the hard way, climbing up three waterfalls and through some pretty tight squeezes. Of course, we unanimously picked the hard way. Cerine took the lead on the first waterfall, as Matt showed us exactly where to place our hands and feet as we scrambled up it. Mark took the lead on the second, which although not quite as technically challenging of a climb as the first, carried a much higher risk of an ugly death if you screwed up. Our fingers were long since numb from the water, which didn't help matters any (Sherry hates being cold, so it was probably just as well she skipped this trip). Crawling up the much smaller third fall, we emerged into the sunlight as Matt snapped our pictures, now veterans of the Black Abyss.

Happy to see the sun after 4 hours underground

Looking around, the small stream running into the hillside seemed pretty non-descript, and you wouldn't think there were such wonders lying so close underground. Above ground, though, we were in BFE to put it bluntly, and the only sign of civilization was the goat track we tramped along for a kilometer or so until we reached the van. The wetsuits were even harder to get off than on, if that's possible. A hot shower never felt so good, and the tomato soup and toasted bagels waiting for us in the cafe were welcome indeed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waitomo_Caves

Easily one of the best things we've done in New Zealand

We picked up a few souvenirs, then drove into the tiny town of Waitomo, but everything was closed, so we turned around and headed for home. We stopped in Otorohanga to see if there were any cool Kiwiana stores, but as it was after 6pm, they were all closed, too. Pretty much nothing in NZ except restaurants and bars is open late. A few days ago, Cerine even took a picture of a sign in the window of Farmer's Department Store which read "Open Late Until 7pm."

Otorohanga public library

On our way home, we stopped at the crest of the Kaimais to wait for the sunset. By this time, we were getting hungry again (it's a 2.5 hour drive) and stopped at Mills Reef Winery for dinner. We were definitely underdressed, but we didn't really care by that point. The food was excellent. Cerine wanted no part of Mark's oysters tempura or confit of duck, and stuck with a summer vegetable and pine nut strudel. Ronan was in bed by the time we got back, so we wound down our day of adventure hanging out in the living room with Sherry, watching TV and getting the latest gossip from home and abroad.

Sunset over the Waikato Plain

Gorgeous sky over the Kaimais

A civilized dinner after a day of roughing it