The five of us once again piled into the car for a 2-hour drive to the Waitomo Caves. Roughly translated, Waitomo means "wet hole" - and wet it was! After equipping us with wet suits, helmets, boots, headlamps, and inner tubes, our guides tested our ability (or courage, in come cases), to fall 4-feet backwards into a cave river. With the preliminaries out of the way, we were ready to descend into massive cavern system and enjoy the Black Labyrinth!
It was a wet, wild and absolutely fun ride, highlighted by seeing the twinkling lights of glow worms. Technically, glow worms are the larvae of a fungus-munching bug. Let's face it - they're MAGGOTS! But they emit light to attract other insects upon which they prey. From our point of view, the glow worms look like dangling jewels that we could fully appreciate once our headlamps were off in the pitch black, underground cave. Magical!
I am SO glad we had the opportunity to go cave tubing! What a hoot, team! I'll never forget that experience. :)
ReplyDeleteThis expedition was awesome! You left out a few other highlights like the caving practice in the museum, the jokester in the van, the pitch black "find your own way out" jaunt at the end, and even the chocolate gummy fish. Hopefully, the hike we did afterward is worthy of its own post!
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