12-14-10

Cave day is here and it is game time, we both woke up and pulled on our spelunking boots ready for the wonders of the New Zealand underground. My stomach was feeling much better, and I was just as excited as Paul to see the wonders of the cave.  Arriving at Rap, Rock, and Climb we met the rest of our group, three young kids from Japan (two girls and one boy) they seemed very nice but did not speak much english so we chatted with our guides Simon and Cheri, Cheri was our official guide and Simon her "evil shadow" was along to evaluate her. We piled into a van and drove into a pasture and up to a run down building with two large 40ft metal storage container (like you see on trains and flat bed trucks) Now this seemed out of place and a little on the shady side, but it was where they store all of the equipment we would be using. Normally I would have been thinking this looks like a place they could murder us, but I was distracted by Simon telling us that we picked the right tour time since our chance of a flash flood hitting he cave in the afternoon was likely. I think he thought he was putting my mind at easy, but naturally the story of other guides having to blind dive into flooded caves and hold their breath as the current washed them through channels and popped them out on the other side naturally put me on edge and I was already going through survival scenarios in my head to get Paul and I out in any flooding event.

Cheri got us fitted with wet suites, gum boots, helmets with lights, and repelling harnesses, once geared up we got back in the van for a 5min drive further into the pasture land.  We followed a sheep trail (yes, full of sheep shit) to a fence that had ropes tied to it. At the ropes she showed us how to use our harness and ropes to abseil down into the cave, it was really easy on land with both feet on the ground, I did get nervous when the sheep baaah'd at me when I slipped! 

After the practice we walked down the trail to the cave entrance there was a rope to our left and Cheri told us to clip our two safety lines to it, I felt foolish because I thought this was another "practice" but I was wrong and I was first in line to abseil down into the cave (I thought we were going to walk in and abseil later) I got nervous!  Cheri clipped me in and told me to step off the plat form, ugh…we were really high about 25 meters up and I had never done anything like it before.  Having the others behind me I sucked it up, put my fears aside and slowly stepped off, and to my delight I did not crash to the bottom, the rope held just fine and all I did was swing even with the platform as I froze and did not move a muscle.  I soon figured out that not moving a muscle would not get me to the bottom so I got my wits about me and fed the rope through the clips as we had practiced earlier.  It was a lot of work to lower your self down with a rope, the ropes were we and really stiff going through the clips, but it was a lot of fun. Dropping into the cave this way was so beautiful and I was fine as long as I looked level and not down. At the bottom I unclipped my self and moved out of the way for Paul to come join me. One of the Japanese girls after Paul decided to unclip at the bottom, stop right under the rope, take off her helmet start playing with her hair, she could not get it right and would not move until her friend had made it down, done her hair for her and been yelled at by the guides to "get the hell out of the way" and go wait in the pre determined meeting place that had a nice big sign saying "WAIT HERE".  We were waiting in about knee deep water and by the time everyone including our guides came down I was getting cold, but we soon started to move into the cave. Close to the entrance Cheri introduced us to Jeff the eel, he is very use to people coming into the cave and let people touch him (I did not, I thought he might swim in my boots) but Paul gave him a little pet.

We made our way up ankle to chest deep water through the cave with formations all around and after a couple hundred yards the roof opened up into a big cavern, at this point we all turned off out lights and above us was an amazing glow worm display with thousands of them everywhere, it was amazing.    After laying on our backs and enjoying show our guides let us back towards the entrance.  At the cave entrace we pick up intertubes that were tied on the wall and jumped in, grabbed onto each other's ankles in a line and were led down the other direction behind our guide.  As we disappeared out of daylight thousands of glowworms appeared on the ceilings, walls, everywhere and all of the sudden there was a huge SLAP behind us, "oh know the entrance has collapsed"  I thought, but is was Simon hitting the water with a big stip which is supposed to make the glowworms glow brighter.  As we floated down the cave you could see the tunnel in front and behind because of all the glowworms lining the walls and ceiling as we continued floating through the cave for 10 or 15 minutes the ceiling began to get closer  and at a point where the water got shallow we stopped got off our tubes and just stared at glowworms 2-3 feet over head, up the and down the tunnel and reflecting in the water in all directions we were all in awe.  After a couple minutes Cheri brought us over to a low ceiling, had us turn off our lights and left hers on horizontally across the ceiling showing hundreds of glowworm dangling strings the worms fishing lines right infront of our faces, we had to duck not to hit them they were right there, a couple had bugs caught in the syliva and some had bug shells at the top that they had caught, sucked up and eaten, so cool!  My amazement turned to annoyance after watching the damn japanese chick (same doing her hair below people repelling) hitting the glowworm syliva strings after being told specifically not too, this girl was lucky I didn't just make her disappear in that cave!

After getting up close and personal with the worms which are actually in the maggot family we continued down the cave for another 30-40 minutes checking out stalagmites and stalagtites, cool rock formations, playing and squeezing though small passageways  and exploring everything along the way before coming to another cavern with a high ceiling.  We were too far back for any more glowworms (no more bugs to eat) but we all sat on a ledge her and our guide handed out chocolate and poured glasses of a hot orange cider out of her thermos she had been carrying.  We sat back there for 15 minutes eating and drinking before heading up a small trail high onto a side of the cavern and through a small passage way we had to squeeze through the near the top.  Cheri explained that the high ceiling in this area and our ability to get high in the cavern made this the emergency spot incase the cave started to flood, they even had a barrel attached to the rocks that she explained was emergency food rations to feed any stranded people if the water shot up.  Knowing it was a wet rainy day outside it was good to know they had an emergency plan but also a little scary to know this cave is prone to flood in any heavy falls!  Cheri and Simon also explained that the next few kilometers further down the cave became a little harder to pass including a section you had to go under water (in the winter or high water times) hold your breath and let the current bring you through a small section so this was where the tour turned around.  The walk out was cool again with lots of worms and Cheri snapping lots of photos.  Back at the entrance we each took turns climbing up a 50 foot wall while being belayed by Cheri.  

Once above ground again it was showers at the storage containers then back to the headquarters.  At headquarters we were shown all of the pictures Cheri had taken while drinking warm tomato soup.  We had them burn us a copy of the photos then jumped in Serena, exhausted from 4.5 hours of cave exploring, and headed south back to the gate of the Tangario not knowing at the time we were leaving both towels, swimsuits and wet socks in Rap, Rock and climb headquarters.

At camp that night I had another really bad stomach ache right after I ate a kiwi fruit, and looking back I ate a kiwi on an empty stomach the other night as well.  Hmm…no more kiwi's for now.