Australasia day 4: Waitamo and the Glow Worm Caves

I hopped on the Waitomo Wanderer shuttle about 7:45am and headed off. I booked with a company the Legendary Black Water Rafting Co. I booked the Black Abyss Package for $167.00 NZ.

Black Abyss is the ultimate adrenaline rush and caving tour of choice for natural born adventurers everywhere. My adventure began by gearing up at base camp: wetsuit, butties, shorts, helmet, underwater light, check!




I was joined by a Japanese couple and a German-Australian couple, Ume and Jocelyn, along with our guides Ben and Tom. We started off by descending/abseiling 37 meters spider-like into the black depths of Ruakuri Cave thru the tomo. From there we walked another 100 meters before climbing on a zip line, called Flying Fox, and flying 200 meters to a cavern floor far below. We then picking up our inner tubes and cliff jumping 4 meters into the water below. The caves above were illuminated with the bioflorescence of Glow Worms, as we pulled ourselves along a rope with our lights to guide us. The glow worms when viewed up close are actually fly larvae, yes Maggots that secrete strings to catch their prey which they then pull up and eat alive. Yummy! Next, we stopped, had some hot cocoa and biscuits, then formed a link and were excorted by our guides thru caverns fulls of glowworms. Gorgeous. We dropped off our inner tubes and crawling thru caverns, perching along cavern falls and climbing up several wall, we ascended to the surface after being underground for 3 hours.