Waitoma Caves – February 15, 2007
The Waitoma region of the North Island s small but has over 300 mapped underground caves, like a town built over Swiss cheese. There are a variety of activities centered around the caves, like abseiling (repelling), blackwater rafting (tubing in underground rivers), glowworm tours and of course just old fashioned cave hiking. We initially booked a blackwater rafting tour but were then talked into a more varied tour that included some hiking, climbing, tubing and swimming by one of the locals who let us in on a little secret that the rafting is really just drifting along slowly in a tube.
After our routine hostel search (which were all full) we checked with a Top 10 Holiday Park, a popular place for RVs and Campers. They actually had great, clean private cabins with linens, a sink, electric kettle and immaculate shared bathrooms for the same price of a hostel. We backed our car right up to our door (it beeps when it backs up like the forklifts in Home Depot), looked out to the endless grass fields and mountains in our “backyard” and wished Morgan was with us. He would have loved exploring the place with his nose down. We had some time to kill before our tour. Looking around, we found a perfectly kept pool, hot tub and trampoline! With no kids in sight, Chris and I headed straight to the trampoline to jump around. Laughing like we were children, we double jumped each other as high as possible until we remembered how tired you get on trampolines. Next we retired to the pool to hop back and forth between the freezing cold pool and the hot tub. We were in heaven; the Holiday Park was more like a 5 Star luxury hotel to us.
Ready and rested for our caving tour, we walked across the street to meet up with our guide for the day. The tours are usually limited to 12 people which would have still been nice but luckily, no one else had signed up that entire day so we would have the place to ourselves. The previous day 101 people had gone in separate groups and the day after we went another 100 were booked. Our guide was just as excited to take just 2 of us; we would have more time and get to see some “extras”. We rejoiced at having switched tour companies at the last minute which got us a private tour!
We took a 10 minute drive further into the mountainous farmland and parked at a Barn. It was eerie that the place looked no different from the top while there was so much going on underground. Our guide told us that the farmer rents out his cave solely to them so that they can best control the safety and people entering/leaving. Inside the barn, we were fitted with gear – thick 5mm wetsuits, booties, boots and a helmet. I couldn’t help but laugh at the fact that Chris looked much like a member of the Village People in his caving outfit. Then we started our hike over the farmland to the cave entrance. I was so excited – the last time I had been caving was in Tennessee while in high school when we camped and explored the caves until dawn. I was more excited because Chris hadn’t been caving before and I knew he was going to love it.
At a recessed area between two hills we found the small cave entrance, just an indistinguishable gap in the rocks. Only a couple feet wide, we looked into the hole and climbed about 20 feet down a narrow ladder. Inside, we were already standing in water – the only light coming from our helmets and the small beam of light shining down from the above. We dredged through rocky passages, streams and underground rooms covered in stellagtites and stellagmites (rock formations created over thousands of years by the water dripping from above and depositing a trail of calcium on the way down). We crawled and wiggled our way through tiny holes and hallway gaps barely spacious enough to get ourselves into. At two points, we came to underground rivers. In some parts the ceiling was covered with hundreds of thousands of gnats (called glow worms), which emit a green florescent light to attract their prey. They drop silk threads and act like spiders in catching their food. Their life span is quite dysfunctional. They lay hundreds of eggs. One gnat survives by eating all of the others. It then has the energy to climb to the ceiling. At some point, it goes through metamorphosis and can fly – only to be attracted to the same light that it used to emit…flying into a thread and becoming immediately paralyzed and eaten by its own kind. Strange as it was, when we turned off our headlamps, the glow-worms lit the ceiling of the cave like stars littering a perfect black sky. We stared in amazement, before heading down the river. At the first river, we grabbed a black tube and jumped in. The water was freezing! We floated down the long and lazy underground stream (150ft underground) to a stopping point halfway through. Here our guide treated us to hot lemonade – a genius concoction we’d never thought of – and ate small Cadbury chocolates to warm up.
More caving, more exploring and we came to another stream. This time, we dove in. No tube. Freezing again! We swam down the stream as quick as possible to avoid hypothermia. Our guide was able to take us down extra hallways and through extra holes and passageways since there was no one else on the tour. Covered in the thick brown mud that lines the caves, we climbed around sharp, jagged rocks and ended at the last water spot – a deep hole of water where we could climb high and jump in. I flailed into the abyss of ice-cold water. Chris was more exaggerative with a nice canon ball. We swam over to a spot that the guide isn’t ever allowed to take anyone, held our breath, swam under the rocky wall to end up in a tiny room (big enough only for 2 people) and appropriately titled “The Kissing Booth”. Our guide left us to share a muddy, blue-lipped kiss and we swam back under and out to the end. Climbing into sunlight we could see the withered wrinkles in our skin. Although the usual tour is only two hours long we had been under for three! We walked towards the light and looked back into what looked like a doorway into the center of the earth. For anyone who grew up in the eighties, a true “Goonies” experience.
Tags: Travel
pcschroeder
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