Well I freakin' love caves, and add some glow worms to that equation and I am IN! Janet and Dee decided to take the walking tour through the cave with a gentle boat ride at the end, while Nat and I donned wet suits and decided to do a little black water rafting.

So, I've been WHITE water rafting before and generally speaking, when one thinks of RAFTING there is usually a RAFT of some kind involved.

Well, after putting on wetsuits, gum boots and helmet's with miner's lights (yup I was lookin' dead sexy) we took a van out into this farmers field, and as we were driving up one couldn't help but notice there were cows everywhere on the road. I thought this was weird and the guide fessed up that on his way out that morning he had forgotten to shut the gate and as a result the cows decided to have a little wander about.

So we got out of the van and walked through rolling fields and forest for about 20 minutes until we came to a pile of INNER TUBES. This was the "raft". Find one to fit your behind, they said. Hmm.

After choosing our method of transportation we found the mouth of the cave and descended into the darkness. It was quite slippery, rocky, cold and wet, and Nat and I were LOVING IT!!

We got to the bottom where there was a rocky area and then the river began. Now the guides wanted to have a little fun with us and so they told us that there were eels, rats and giant wetas that would be attracted to the light on your head and most likely would fly into your face. Since Wetas are an endangered species, they said, don't swat them away, simply let them fall off your face and don't scream. HAR HAR. Well they seemed dead serious, and you have to imagine being in this cave, IN THE DARK with the thought of who knows what roaming around beside you!

Too late to back out now, we were off down the river on our inner tubes. So glad for the gum boots, and they were quite useful for the cow bits along the way.

As we floated down the river in this huge cavern, they told us to turn off our lights. Pitch blackness, but wait! What's that? On the ceiling there are hundreds of glow worms, they look like stars except a kind of phosphorescent green colour, it's amazing, and you can't hear anything except the occasional dripping of water. And you can't see anything save these little points of light, some much closer than others, glad I had that helmet on!

Soon enough we come to a waterfall where we are to (there are 12 of us on this tour) stand backwards with our inner tubes on our bottoms and FALL into the water below us one by one. Nat went first, I was second. And yes that was somewhat frightening.

The whole cave experience was just so cool, and they even had an actual slide further down the way. There were also really incredible formations and stalagmites and stalactites (Nat was telling me all about them; she was a cave guide in Oz).

Soon enough we were out in broad daylight again, where the van was waiting to take us back to base, a hot shower and some tomato soup. Rock ON!