Well, I said I wanted an adventure...

Parts of today were terrifying.

Parts of today were exhilarating.

But any way you look at it, today was CERTAINLY an adventure.

We rented (in this part of the world they say "hired") a car, and headed off for a small town in the middle of the North Island of New Zealand called Waitomo. The town is not the attraction, but it houses the Waitomo Caves, which I had read about and did not want to miss. Because this was the portion of the trip that my mom was meeting me, we left more in the hands of our travel agent, Aspire Down Under (hey Shelley!), and other than telling her I wanted to go, I wasn't totally paying attention to what to expect (except something awesome that looked fake, as I had google imaged them), or what kind of activity she was booking us for - but more on the caves in a second.

My mom started off the day driving. This was her first time driving on the left side of the road and she was such a nervous nelly it was driving us both insane. What made her the most crazy (and I'll have to agree with her on this) isn't the driving on the left side, and isn't the driving in the right seat, but it's using the blinkers on the right side of the drivers wheel. I can't even tell you how frustrating it was to go to turn on the binding light and end up turning on the windshield wipers! For every other "opposite" we were totally on guard and ready for the challenge, but somehow that one... Any who, the first big town we came across, Hamilton, took my mom to her limit. There were tons of roundabouts and she FREAKED. it was pretty clear it was my turn at the wheel (although that almost scared her more). We stopped at a delicious lunch spot, Scottsdale Epicurean, which our new friend from the night before, Annabelle, suggested. It did not disappoint.

And then we were off to the caves! I was surprised at how much my few weeks in Australia had acclimated me to drive on the left side of the road. I'm so used to looking right before a crossing now, that I just seem ton have normalized (although, later in the night it got a little scary and I was relieved to actually reach the motel).

We got to the entry area fashionably early with swimsuits, towels, and a big appetite for fun and adventure (the requirements for "what to bring" in the brochure)! The tour we were booked on was called the Labyrinth Tour and the company was the Black Water Rafting Co, which lead me to believe we'd be sitting in a raft floating lazily along and might occasionally build up a bit of speed and possibly get a tad bit wet. Was I ever wrong. We knew this the second our guides began fitting us for all kinds of wet suit gear - booties, thick undergarments, hard helmets, the total package. The wetsuits and gear were super cold and I am pretty sure I heard every member of our group (nine of us) say at one point or another "what the hell have we gotten ourselves into?" or "who thought this was a good idea?"



The group of us (and last and only picture I have) about to head off with no idea what to expect.

We then loaded a van and were taken to another area where we picked out inner tubes. Here they taught us how to make an "eel" - hold the person in front of ours' feet to form a floating line. We practiced still out in the dry. They told us we'd be doing the eel after we jumped the second waterfall. Uh oh. Whoever said anything about jumping waterfalls?! It was now time to practice the waterfalls, so we all had to jump (more like get pushed) backwards into the freezing cold water. Now that we were wet, cold, and vetted, it was time to get started.

The name of the cave is "Ruakuri," which is a Maori word for "two dogs." We learned the story of how it got its name, but for the dog lovers reading this, all you really need to know is that things don't turn out well for the two dogs that guarded the cave.

We ducked (stalagmites), squeezed (tight tight small openings), and trampled (loose rocks and varying depths of water) through the opening of the cave. The water was so cold, the rocks were unstable, and the cave was DARK! (of course we did have headlamps attached to our helmets (without which I would have cracked my skull open about 50 times. As my mom kept saying, "now we really know we are in New Zealand!" and then we reached a stopping place. Our guides told us to turn out out list and look up. It was brilliant! Hundreds of tiny blue lights hung and glowed vibrantly just above us! These were the Waitomo Caves famous glow worms, and the big attraction of the caves. Or guides took this opportunity to explain to us what these "worms" really are - "maggots with glowing shit." Now I could tell you more but I might just bore you with the details - google would be a great place to start if you are curious, but that pretty much just sums it up. They said they call them worms because it draws the tourists: "who really wants advertise fancy maggot shit?" (they also provided a very fun and very "kiwi" explanation of the life cycle of these maggots - "basically the males shag their mate for 24 hrs, pretty typical of the average kiwi. They then drop dead, also pretty common..." Nonetheless, it was pretty cool, and this was just one little tease of them. A few waterfalls later, we got in eel position and floated through a long complicated hallway where the "glowworms" floated above like our own personal milky way. During that portion, we forgot we were freezing and a tad bit uncomfortable and just stared up in complete awe. We weren't allowed to take pictures (they said it was because they wanted us paying attention to what we were doing, and they took some in case we wanted to buy - we didn't- but my camera couldn't have gone there anyway).



This is a picture from google, but gives you an idea. Just know, it is every bit as cool as the pictures you'll find online, yes, even though they totally look photoshopped.

They then had us all stop in a little area where it appeared to be raining. But how could this be? We were in a cave! Well they told us to squint and loom up. Wayyyyyyy above was a tiny little hole. Actually, it's s big hole, I think the said between 5-6 meters wide, but as we were 210 feet down it looked tiny. The Maori word for water is "wai" and the word for hole is "tomo" and THAT is how the Waitomo caves get their name. From there our guides told us we were going to play a game called "find our way out in the dark". We all had to turn our lights off and navigate through by following the glow of the worms. This wasn't hard, but oh my god did we all start to realize we were cold! Many couldn't feel their hands or feet. It was really staring to hurt. And then we were out and on our way to hot showers and soup to help us thaw out!

All in all SUCH a wild day!

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