Day 4: Caving

Coolest thing I have ever done. Hands down.

We took a bus to Waitomo from Rotorua, which took about 2 hours.  We traveled through glorious country side and our group split into two: one group went to the TumuTumu Waterhole Caves and the other went to Haggas Honking Holes. The first group was more of a leisurely raft into glow worm caves on tubes. The second group was repelling down a 65 foot drop and then two waterfalls. I said to myself "YOLO" and I did the second one.

Oh. my. god. I was terrified when we started. They loaded us up with wet suits, rain boots, helmets, head lamps, and a harness. We were in the middle of no where on some Kiwi's farm practicing repelling down the side of a steep hill. Our guide showed us how to set up the rope and lower ourselves down a grassy knoll, said "Yup, you're ready!" and took us into the cave. We were about 20 feet under when we already had no light. He told us the first thing we would do is repel down the 65 foot drop. I was the last to go. And I heard every girl's high pitched scream and every guy's manly shout beforehand. My guide helped me to the ledge, I tied my rope onto my harness and he pushed me into the black abyss. I slowly but surely made my way down without screaming, and when my feet touched the bottom, I felt like a complete bad ass. That is, until my 55 year old guide literally grabbed a rope in either hand and physically ran down the wall like he was Indiana Jones.


We spent about 3 hours underground, during which time we repelled down 2 thirty foot waterfalls and crawled in spaces I though were only meant for the dwarves in Lord of the Rings. I thought the goblins were going to make an appearance, though luckily they did not. I did do a very nice Gandalf "You Shall Not Pass" impression, which I think my friend Claire would definitely have appreciated at that venue in particular.

The hardest part of caving was getting out. We had to climb up shear rock faces with just rubber boots on. In many circumstances, we had to be attached with ropes just in case we slipped, even when we climbed ladders.  At one point, I reached the top of the tallest ladder to meet my guide and the people before me. "Where are they?" I thought we were at a dead end. "Up there," he says pointing to a small hole in the ceiling. "And I'm supposed to climb that, with no rope and no one to help me while you help the next person up?" "Yup," he says and tosses down the rope to the next one. I thought this was some sort of sick joke. I found a couple foot holes about an inch deep and clawed my way up. When I got my shoulders through the 90 degree angle hole, I was forced to let my feet off of the footholds and let my legs dangle as I yanked myself through. Totally thought I was going to slip out, fall on my guide and fall down the waterfall with the ladder below me. Somehow I remembered my army crawl training from racing my brother through the obstacle course through my house when I was a kid (god your brilliant mom, who would have known you would save my life with that 15 years later) and squeezed my way through. HAZAHH!

We made out way back to the surface after going through some really cool caves with glow worms and huge stalactites and stalagmites. Apparently, it takes 100 years for a stalactite/mite to grow one centimeter. Which meant that the ones we saw were hundreds of thousands of years old. Sweet-as Bro!

FUN FACT #4: Kiwi's use the word "as" pretty much as a synonym to "super". The most popular is "Sweet-as" but there is also "Cool-as". My favorite is "Pissed-as" which essentially means you are very very drunk.

Once above, we found our friends the sheep again and peeled off the wetsuits to meet the other group for lunch. It was a beautiful day, but needless to say we all slept on the way home. When we got back, our Global Links fearless leader "Tyme" held a talent show.

FUN FACT #5: One thing that no one ever mentions about New Zealand is the fact that the internet here SUCKS! There is no such thing as free wi-fi here. Except at McDonalds, Burger King, and Wendy's. (American represents!!!)

In any case, I was not willing to pay for internet at the hostel. But when Tyme said that one of the prizes was a $10 internet card I said, "Sign me up!!"My friend Amy and I did a lovely rendition of Nicki Minaj's "Super Bass" complete with rap and chorus. We got third place, thereby earning $10 each for wi-fi. Heellllsss yeahhh!

I headed to bed, ready for the next day at the Beach!!!