Cavers

Leaving Lake Taupo we had a long drive, as sort distances take way longer in NZ then they do back home, I have seen 3 straight roads in all of NZ and they were 1-2Km at the longest.
We followed a secondary highway along ariver with some more of NZ beutiful picturesc  scenery. Stoped for luch in a shithole town ate in teh van and headed off for Waiotomo caves a few Km away. We arived and it was to late for any cave trips so we settled into a campsite and booked or tour for the following day.
After the morning routen we headed down the Waitomo Adventures, to check in for our day of Blackwater rafting (tubing in underground rivers) We had a group of 9 and 2 guides. Piled into a van and headed off to the staging area. We all got outfitted into some wetsutes, helmets, and gumboots. And set out on a short hike through a farmers sheep feild to the enterance to our caveing adventure.
"A" was feeling brave and headed down the hole first, after sqeezing through teh opening she was told to lead on in and wait at the water marker... "ok...." I was second and I had to lower myself down the ladder with my hands as the hole was to small for me to step my big feet down the rungs of the ladder. Afeer sliding through a tight squeese to get into the cavern the guide toald me to head on off after "A" and wait for everyone. After stumbling throught the uneven rock floor I found "A" smiling from ear to ear waiting for me.
Once everyone was gathered inside and after a bit of a does and dont's we started caving our way down towards the underwater river following one of the guides. A few minutes of squeesing, ducking, crawling, in and out of water we got to another meeting area. Stoped for a head count and I was asked to lead for a while :) I plunged of with a smile on my face all the time taking in the amazing formations above and below, aswell as to the sides.  A quick stop to put mud on our faces for "camuflage" from the cave monster and one of the other girls was volentold to lead on down to the next rest area where we turned off our lights and checked out the glow worms NZ caves are famous for. After a few minutes of in the dark we were told to leave or lights off, turn to the left and put our hands on the person infront of us shoulder. We made a conga line in the dark and "A" got her foot stuck, while I waited for her the conga line went on without us... We cought up and started crawling as the roof was getting lower and lower, as we started going through a small hole "A" freeked a bit and turned her light on ony to find out the guides had everyone going through a small crawlspace when there was a perfictly good wide open walkway going the same place, we took the walkway.
A Little farther down we pickedup our tubes and climbing up onto a rock we held our tubs over our ass's and fell on back to a nice freezing cold splash, a laugh and all waited for everyone to board there tubes. Hooking feet to the next persons arms lights out we headed on down the river laying our heads back to enjoy the glow worms on the celing in the dark river. Once at the end we disembarked from USS Tube in the dark "A" being the most gracefull sliding off for a big splash. Some more caving and we stoped for hot drink and a snack.
We continued on with warm bellys over some really cool parts where our rcokclimbing skills came in handy as there were big holes we had to shimmy over and some ledges to side climb over to avoid getting stuck. When we reached our second bit of tubing we ended up smimming it as the water was really high and we wouldof hit our heads the whole way. Right at the last of the swimming was the scarryest part, with barely enugh room for your face we had to go feet first through a tunnel, head layed back and a face full of water ti was a bit freeky.
One pinball ally later, fast moving water feet first and arms crossed we saw daylight. Our time as cavers was over, one last sqeeze and we crawled out into the forest, hiked our way upto the hut to peeled of the wetsuit and have a hot shower.
Grinning ear to ear we made our way upto The Shearing shed where they have Angora Rabbits, we arrived just in time to see a Rabbit get shaved. Was a funny sight how fluffy these critters are and how silly they look shaved.. or half shaved as in this case.
We were wet, tired, bruised and hungry so we head onward to New Plymouth for the evening, nice drive but man are we tired and too old for crawling through holes in the ground.....