Day 16 - Thursday
Today was caving day.
The Waitomo caves appear on most of the “must do in the North Island”, lists and are famous for their Glow Worms and incredible limestone rock formations. Earlier in the week, I’d looked at their website (whoever designed it needs to be sacked) and it’s very confusing. On the one hand, it talks about gentle walks and slow boat rides through the caves and then right next to that, it shows pictures of people doing scary stuff, like whizzing down underground rivers on rubber rings, squeezing through tiny holes and abseiling down rocks into the abyss below.
Eventually I worked out that you could choose to do either gentle and safe or tough and scary.
I was quite taken with the gentle and safe option. Lottie and Hellie had other ideas.
They had found a trip that involved all of the scary stuff listed above with the added bonus of rock climbing.
They were keen that we all do the caves together, but as I have a phobia about heights, small spaces and would rather stick needles in my eyes than abseil or rock climb, it was clear that we needed to part company for this particular trip.
My aversion to rock climbing and abseiling is based on bitter humiliating experience.
Originally I trained to be a PE teacher and as part of our course we had to do an outward bound trip in Wales that included both of these horrible activities. I managed to make it up the relatively easy rock face with only a few tears and without needing a Brown paper bag to hyperventilate into, but when it came to abseiling back down - I just couldn’t do it.
My body refused point blank to lean out backwards. My brain was saying “do it - do it - you are going to get the mickey taken out of you forever if you don’t”. But everything below my neck, just refused to follow orders. Eventually after several agonising minutes, the instructor told me to move aside and let the others go. I was the only one in the group who didn’t do it and - my fellow students never let me forget it.
Once back in sunny Berkshire (well it seemed sunny after Wales) I decided to try to conquer my fear of heights by attempting to scale the college climbing wall. I made it to the top, felt very proud of myself until I realised getting back down was going to be a problem. There was a chimney feature, with no holds for hands or feet, so you had to sort of wedge yourself in and wiggle. Going up hadn’t been too bad, but sitting at the top, once again, my body demonstrated a point blank refusal to do as it’s told. Try to imagine for one moment, the horrendous humiliation, of being a PE student stuck at the top of the wall, with everyone walking by laughing and pointing (students can be very cruel at times). In the end someone had to bring a ladder to get me down!!
So lets face it - if you can’t do these things when you are young and fit - you’ve got no chance when you’re old and out of condition. I assured the girls I would be perfectly fine doing the caves my way and they could go have fun doing the extreme stuff.
We set off early as their adventure was booked for 8.45 and it was a 2 hour drive.
The original plan was for the girls to drop me at the main entrance for my tours and then drive to the “Extreme Caving: place. Unfortunately, our journey took a little longer than expected because of the rain (and you can’t take sharp bends at normal speeds in that sort of weather), so as their meeting point was closer than mine, we decided I would take the car and come back to pick them up at the end of our respective tours.
Please bear in mind that although, when I first arrived in NZ, I had fully intended to share the driving with Lottie - that’s not how it had panned out. She had become our designated driver mostly because she was coping with the difficult driving conditions far better than I would (far too many Poo in the pants roads) and we felt it was better to complete our journeys in the time suggested by our mapping system (Lottie driving) as opposed to taking twice as long (me driving).
Because I hadn’t actually driven Bertha until this point, I was feeling a bit nervous, which is crazy given how much experience I have - especially driving right hand drive automatics on the left hand side of the road.
However in my defence, it was pouring with rain, we had just driven down some seriously bendy roads, so there was no reason to think there wouldn’t be more and I live in fear of finding myself on a road with a big drop and no barrier.
I kept telling myself I was being ridiculous and my caves had to be really close by - probably even walkable.
I got into the driving seat, moved it forward - no, too close - moved it back - no, too far,- forward again until it felt about right. I adjusted the mirrors, realised I was faffing around to put off the inevitable, so started the engine …………. and turned it off again.
I was still wearing my flip flops - never a good choice of footwear for driving a vehicle - jumped out of the car, changed into sensible shoes, jumped back in and started the engine.
Now it was just a case of slipping the car into reverse, releasing the handbrake and I was ready to go.
I don’t know about you, but for me the word “Handbrake”, implies using your hand, but Bertha is a contrary old thing and her handbrake was in fact, a foot pedal that you had to press down to release.
Lottie had indicated it was down near the brake, and by leaning down I could see something that certainly looked like it. I pressed and pressed, but it didn’t move. I took a deep breath and pressed again - nothing. In fact the bloody thing didn’t even feel like there was any movement in it whatsoever. So I got out of the car so I could crouch down to have a proper look and could see the problem immediately. I was actually trying to press down on the foot rest that is so helpfully provided in automatics, to help people rememberer there is no clutch. The “handbrake” ( or additional footbrake as it should be called) was actually situated between the normal brake pedal and the footrest and set a little higher.
I got back in the car (please remember that it has been chucking it down with rain all this time) confident that I could now find the bloody thing with my foot, but as soon as I was seated, it had vanished again.
This was getting ridiculous and I was worried that the girls would glance out of the office, see me still there and rush over thinking something dreadful had happened. So I decided to use the logical, systematic approach. The pedal was obviously there somewhere, so I placed my left foot on the rest and then moved it slowly right and left, up and down until I finally located it.
So with that now released and Bertha in reverse I slowly moved out into the car park.
Bertha’s windscreen wipers and indicators are the wrong way round - well it’s probably not wrong if that’s what you are used to, but I can’t ever remember driving a car with the indicators on the right stalk, so all I can say it was a good job nothing was behind or in in front of me.
I finally managed to get the wipers working ( without indicating) and pulled out of the car park onto a very narrow road that had bends, unusual cambers and seemed to go on forever. It was actually only six and half kilometres, but it felt like sixty.
After a little detour around the car park belonging to the Black Water Rafting Extreme Tours Company and realising that definitely wasn’t where I needed to be, I finally saw the sign for the Glow Worm caves car park. I pulled in, made it down the 90 degrees incline, parked Bertha sideways on the slightly scary hill and with a huge sigh of relief, walked to the ticket office across the road.
The organisation at this place is almost as bad as their website.
I had booked a tour in each of their three caves: - Glow worm Cave at 9.00, The Ruakuri Cave at 11.00 and the Aranui Cave at 1.00. The lady behind the counter was all smiles but told me I needed to hurry for my first tour, as she gave me the ticket. She then said I should return immediately after, for the rest of my tickets and she would also give me instructions how to drive to my third tour. “What about the second one at eleven”, I enquired. “Oh you can get the coach to that one from outside here”. She then changed her mind and decided to issue all three tickets there and then. By now, I was running very late and slightly losing the will to live. The temptation to return to Bertha, whip out my Kindle and spend the next few hours reading instead of tramping through caves was powerful, but I bravely fought it and ran to the meeting point. I needn’t have worried, loads of people turned up later than me and no-one seemed at all bothered.
Our guide was another delightful elderly Maori lady. She had history with the place, as her great grandfather had been one of the first people to guide people through the caves. She was knowledgeable about the history and geology of the caves and the lifecycle of the glow worm. The best bits for me were ……..
When we all stood in the Cathedral cave, in the dark and she sang an old Maori love song ( it brought tears to my eyes)
When she got really snappy with the people on our tour that were talking too loud and frightening the Glow Worms. She told them off good and proper!!
The caves were stunning, the glow worms were magical and I was really glad I had not given into my plan B (reading in Bertha).
I had an hour to kill before my next tour and so headed to the rather limited cafe (nothing to eat that didn’t contain meat), discovered that smoking wasn’t allowed at their outside tables (I’ve never understood this rule) and so grabbed a coffee to take away and went right outside to stand by the road.
By now, I was beginning to understand that the three caves were in fact, nowhere near each other (this would have been jolly useful information to have been included in their web site and booking confirmation) and was a bit concerned that as my third tour started at the same time the second one was finishing, I wouldn’t have enough time to get there.
Fortunately, there were a number of people, all decked out in Waitomo Caves apparel, standing outside waiting to guide the people pouring off the tour buses.
So as I sipped my coffee and puffed on my cigarette, I homed in on a bright young thing, who looked like she knew her stuff and explained my dilemma. She had maps and solutions at the ready and suggested I drive to another car park close to cave 2 where I would be collected by coach for the tour. I would then have at least 10 minutes at the end of that one to drive to car park 3 ready for my last one.
This all seemed terribly complicated for something that, had it been better organised and the correct information made available, would have been so simple.
Anyway, I was now acutely aware that Bertha and I were going to have to travel even further together, I just hoped I would be able to find the hand brake.
I arrived at Car park 2 a little early, but that was a good thing because it was tiny and I grabbed the last available space. I had been warned that the coach wouldn’t arrive to collect me until about 10 past 11, as they had to make a number of stops, so I spent an entertaining 20 minutes watching a multitude of other cars pulling up, discovering there were no spaces and driving around frantically in circles praying that one would miraculously appear.
Eventually the little minibus arrived (calling it a coach was a bit of a stretch) and we were instructed to hop in and buckle up because it was going to be a bumpy journey.
And it was, bumpy that is - for the whole 200 meters until we arrived. I actually thought it was a joke. Why on earth would you go to all the trouble of organising a bus to pick up people when the cave entrance was literally a 3 minute walk.
Anyway, it wasn’t a joke, and we all piled back out of the bus and made our way into the mouth of the cave. Greg, our guide, had a great sense of humour, quite dark (just like the caves) but very very funny.
He got the serious bit out of the way first. There is a sign at the entrance which states, in big bold Red letters that anyone touching any part of the cave wall or formation will incur a $10,000 fine. This is absolutely true and he assured us that any attempt to sneak off with the odd stalagmite or tite would have serious, highly expensive consequences. Those of us with backpacks were instructed to wear them on our fronts and keep cameras and other loose items close to our bodies.
The caves themselves were breathtakingly beautiful and the tour was highly entertaining, with Greg's little stories and anecdotes. There was a lot of walking and a few low ceilings, but being only 5’3’’ does have it’s advantages at times.
I took a lot of photos, learned far more about Geology than I will ever retain and discovered I’m not quite as terrified of small enclosed dark spaces as I thought I was.
At the end of the 2 hour tour, I was just a teensy weensy bit in love with Greg and had everything crossed that he would be our guide for my third and final tour of the day.
Sadly, it was not to be. He loaded us all back on the bus, drove for about 30 seconds and dropped me off at the car park. I could have chosen to walk up (like all the others who had their cars in car park 2), but in my defence - it was all uphill and I was determined to spend every last second gazing at him.
So with only moments to spare before tour number 3, I was praying that I would be able to locate the hand/footbrake at my first attempt. It was not to be, so I wasted no time, leapt out of the car, bent down and locked the location of this troublesome pedal in my mind.
The final car park (number 3) wasn’t very far, but the hill to get down to it was ridiculous. I drove the whole way with my foot pressing firmly on the brake - the normal one not the stupid hand/foot one.
Once parked I made my way to the meeting point to meet our guide, who was charming, knowledgeable and entertaining ( but sadly not Greg).
I have to admit that by this time, I was just a bit caved out, but I’d braved the hill with Bertha, paid for the ticket and still had time to spare (or so I thought) before I had to go back for the girls - so decided to give it a whirl.
It was completely different from the other 2 and really rather beautiful, so I was glad I stuck with it.
When we finally emerged back into the daylight, I thought I had better just check my phone to see if the girls had been in touch. Four missed messages from Lottie over the last hour, meant that they were well and truly done with the “Extreme” stuff and (as I later found out) were getting a little bit anxious about my whereabouts.
I called her to let her know I was on my way, but might be a while as I was miles away.
It took me nearly 15 minutes to drive back to where the girls were and all I kept thinking was, thank goodness I had opted to take Bertha and not try to walk.
The girls had had a marvellous time and on the way home I got the whole story - in glorious, technicolour, horrific, detail.
The mums and dads reading this will no doubt sympathise with the difficulties of “being a good parent”. When your kids have done something that they feel is a great achievement and want you to be proud of them, you feel obliged to be enthusiastic about their effort
However, when you find yourself recoiling in horror at the potential danger and risks attached to what they were doing, your encouraging smile becomes a fixed rigid grin and it’s really really hard to know what to say.
So the conversation goes something like this……
Lottie - “ so the first thing we had to do was
abseil down the equivalent of a 9 story building into the cave”,
Me - “ and how was that darling?” - (thinking - shit shit shit)
Lottie - “pretty scary and he made me go second”
Me - “ so was there someone waiting at the bottom?’
Lottie - “Yea, but he buggered off down the cave”
Me - (Thinking - WHAT? WHY? WHY? WHY? Health & Safety, Health & safety).
Lottie - “Then we had to get on these rubber tyres and launch ourselves into the underground river”
Me - “ Oh that sounds like fun” - (thinking - that sounds like anything but fun.)
Lottie - “It was, until I went over backwards, fell out of my ring into the river and he had to grab my foot to stop me getting carried away - the current was really strong.
Me - “Really, that must have been a bit scary” - (thinking - NO NO NO DON’T TELL ME ANY MORE.)
Lottie - “It was a bit because I’m not sure where I would have ended up if he hadn’t caught me”
Me - “What else did you do” (thinking - Please shut up now, I don’t want to hear any more amusing little anecdotes about your near death experiences.)
Lottie - “ Then we had to climb up a sheer rock wall.
Me - (makes a strangled sound through my richter grin.)
Lottie “ I went first again and It was great”
Me - “How lovely” (thinking - I’m going to be sick.)
Both Hellene and Lottie were so happy and excited about their day and what they had achieved, all I could do was smile and try to be a nice supportive parent.
Apart from the obvious differences between our respective tours (highly dangerous and life threatening vs a gentle stroll in the dark) there were some others, worth mentioning.
In my caves, we all had to creep around in complete silence so as not to disturb the Glow worms, because, our guides informed us, any slight noise would make them retreat and stop glowing.
The girls instructor had a somewhat different approach.
When they got to a cave that was pitch Black, without a glimmer of a Glow Worms bum (that’s where the light is located apparently) the instructor banged on the wall loudly and yelled “Glow Worms” at the top of his voice. Instant success - the cave was filled with little glowing lights.
Also, as I’ve mentioned, I risked a $10,000 fine if my body or backpack so much as grazed any part of the caves other than the floor. In complete contrast, the girls bounced off the walls, crashed into rocks and kicked the hell out of the cave as they abseiled down.
Anyway, we all had a wonderful time and would say the caves are definitely worth a visit.
Back in Taupo, we had a nice take away meal all together before Lottie and I started getting our things together (which were strewn all over the house) ready for the next morning.
Despite the weather, the earthquake and all the uncertainty that had come with those events, we had been made to feel so welcome and had had a truly amazing time.
Hellie, Jeremy and Jamie - prepare………… we will be back!!!!!