Waitomo Caves - Rap, Rock & Raft

From the Birds we were on our way to Rap, Raft & Rock in Waitomo Caves.

Our 5 hour tour included abseiling - drop by cable rope into the cave - you can see Kyle at left and Mike at right below descending, cave exploring, checking out the glow worms, crawling through some tight tunnels (or your basic spelunking), rafting in complete darkness through the cave tunnels, and then doing a rock climb out of the caves.


We were not allowed to take our own cameras for safety reasons - apparently some people become so involved in photo taking they can actually not pay attention to the important instructions (hmm, there must be other people like Mike in the world it seems :-). So the photos here were all taken by our guide Stuart.

We spotted the cave 'eels' and I even managed to pat one as the guide distracted it (they like to bite you as they are hard up for food!). We also spotted a Weta - kind of like a cave version of a cockroach - which is photoed here.

But the most impressive cave life was definitely the glow worms. When all our lights were out, they were like stars in the sky above us. They were so bright you could actually see their reflection in the water and the contours of the ceiling.

We also crawled through some tight channels - including Kyle almost getting stuck in a horizontal one that opened out into the water. Obviously we did manage to get him out.

And after some further wading in the waters, we all ascended with a final mildly challenging rock climb up the wall back out. It was heaps of fun, and with a small group of only 6 (the max size) there was not much time wasted waiting around.

Our group included 3 others all individually signed up - an Aussie girl from Sydney and 2 blokes from Germany. We ended up going out for dinner with one of the Germans at the Thirsty Weta - and as he said, we had the best of dinners - good food, good drink and good company.

And we all slept very well.