Black Water Rafting - Waitomo Caves

So during the NZ trip i also got the opportunity to try out Black Water Rafting. The reason for this being a challenge is that I am not the best swimmer in the world. Or more clearly i can probably doggy paddle to save my life if i had to but generally i am pretty much the opposite of a water baby. (hence also needing to learn how to swim as a challenge). The other challenge is of course water, in the dark and small caves testing even the non-claustrophobic of us.

Anyway the first challenge was getting into the wet suits, they were wet from having been rinsed as well as really cold. It was actually only about 10 degrees at the time of our tour and then throw on these horribly cold inside out wetsuits and it was not a great start. If only the outfits included some gloves too.

We went to a "practice stream" and had to learn to jump backwards into the water and into our rings. I was freaking out at first as the tour guide was standing on a high platform and i was thinking we were going to have to jump off that and if so i was thinking i wouldn't be able to do it, thankfully we had to practice off a smaller height and it was all a'ok, until we landed in the ice cold freezing water. Definitely the literal version of jumping into the deep end.

Oh did i mention the jumping backwards practice was because there were two waterfalls that we had to jump off.... yup backwards. in the dark....

One of the hightlights of the black water rafting was that there were nice calm moments where you were just floating along looking at the glow worms, which of course arent glow worms but glowing maggot poo. yeah i know, bit of a let down to realise they arent cute worms.

Being partially on the birthday week tour meant a few things, one i got to wear a pair of old ugly togs over my wetsuit which was pretty funny really, gotta love a reason to dress up. But sadly i also had to take the jump off the waterfall first which was pretty scary and i wasnt the happiest chappy on that one. I had to sneak around a 25m deep hole and then jump into the unknown. Because no one was in there first it was dark. Pretty scary to be honest.

Anyway probably not the most exciting entry and i guess its probably evident that it wasnt the most fun i have had. It didnt have the adrenaline rush of the sky tower or the child like "wheeee" of the luge. All in all i am happy to have done it, but would i do it again... nope.