Meng's Travels 2012: Waitomo Caves

This is the second day of our trip. We are heading towards a place called Maketu. On the way there, we stopped at a place called Waitomo Caves. At one time this area was part of the ocean. A lot of dead sea life was deposited here and eventually became limestone. After the sea subsided this became a limestone area. Underground, rivers and streams carve out caves with their stalactites and stalagmites. The town of Waitomo is a touristy town that is built around these caves. We were offered many options to experience the caves. One of them was walking or whatever it takes to go through the caves. This is called the Tumu Tumu Toobing. Other options include abseiling (or rappelling, as Americans called it) down a waterfall into the caves.
I chose the Tumu Tumu Toobing, which costs around NZ $140. I thought it was a simple walk through the caves. I was wrong. It was a lot tougher than that. We had to crawl or squeeze through the caves. In some places, we had to swim and even tube down the caves. In one section of the caves, we turn off our lights and saw the glowworms. To do all this we had to wear wet-suits, boots and miners' helmets.
We were in the caves for about 3 hours and I was physically tired after this. In some parts, it was even scary but we had a couple of good guides. At times, we literally had to squeeze through the limestone formation. It was a worthwhile experience but I don't know if I will do it again.
After Waitomo Caves, we are schedule to drive to a small town called Maketu, on the shore of Lake Rotorua. That is a different experience. It will be in the next blog.