On-the-Road Tales

Got picked up by the shuttle and went to the Blackwater Rafting Company. Sounds like whitewater rafting except there are no rapids and no boats. This activity involved going underground and sidling through caves by crawling, jumping and floating in an inner tube in order to see a bunch of glowworms that like to hang out and glow in the dark.

We got set up in a wetsuit, booties, helmet and head lamp and we went out to the river. We got our inner tube and had to stand on a deck while the two guides informed us ‘we had to practice’. We had to jump backwards off the deck into the water with our tube so they could check ‘our form’. I thought it was a joke but no – they decided to tell us now, past the point of no return, that there were several waterfalls inside the cave where we had to jump out and off backwards in order to clear some rocks below. Fantastic. I did a successful practice run and got indoctrinated into the frigid waters but that was in the daylight, in the dark – underground – would be a different altogether.

We entered the ground opening and made our way through the underground tunnel system. At the point where backwards jumping was required – it was total blind faith. I did not want to hesitiate and get left behind by the only person who knew where we were going so I did not have time to think about it. The guides would tell us where to walk and demonstrate the dangers of not listening by jumping into holes deep enough to swallow them with a single wrong step. Yikes – we all followed their advice. Eventually we came to an open part of the cave where, recling on our tubes, you look up and see hundreds of glowworms – they looked star constellations. The guide – in his briefing informed us that glowworms is just an appealing name for maggot. These were actually maggots whose hind ends glowed to attract flies which would become ensnared in their trap and become dinner. But as the guides rightfully predicted “glowworm” tours was much more effective than “maggot tours” to the general public.

We learned that chocolate marshmallow fish float. The guides, again NZers with their wacky sense of humour – threw one at us for energy I presume before they made us turn our head lamps out and sift our way through the dark to the exit. Like I said – screw loose.

We checked out some waterfalls and landed in Taupo that evening to stay at Urban Retreat. The next we had planned to do an 8 hour trek across the Tongariro

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 17th, 2007 at 2:02 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.