Bday weekend continued...Black Water Rafting weekend

This is a photo of the group going down the river in the cave and looking at the glow worms. It was an amzing sight and nothing I had ever experinced...did I mention the water was only 10, even with wearing a wet suit I was still cold.

Here is a photo of me, just starting down the rock doing abseiling.

After we did the sailing, we drove 2 hrs further north to Waitomo Caves, where we did a 5 hr tour under ground of the Ruakuir Cave. I was super nervous but after paying how much we did for this adventure I pretty much could not turn back. We got all geared up, with wet suits, booties, shorts, and a helment. We hopped into a van and the guide drove us to the caves. We had a quick lesson on how to Absail, then had to actually abseil down 37 meters in complete darkness. The training was not like the real thing. I was so scared but finally made it to the bottom. I closed my eyes many times as we had to get through some tight spots and my hands were sore from holding on to the rope for dear life. Next we did a Flying Fox, which again was fun but it was so dark you could not tell what you were doing next, but as I was flying in the air I got to see alot of glow worms. Then we had to jump into freezing cold water and go tubing down a lazy river to see all of the glow worms, and that was so cool. We continued to see a lot of glow worms and walk in waist deep water through caves, and squeeze through holes to get through. We finally had to climb 3 fairly large water falls to get out to the sun shine. I know this does not sound to appealing but it sure was once I got through my fears of having to abseil and getting over how cold the water was. I would reccomend this to anyone, well I guess I would say you should be in fairly good shape, not scared of the dark and heights!!!