Bob and Naomi go Spelunking

Hello. It is still Saturday March 24 at 7:45pm even after a 9 hr flight from NZ to Hawaii. Hawaiian Air is another fantastic airline for their in-flight service. We got 2 meals with beverages and free movie service on their screens.

Plus Naomi booked our seats in "Extra Comfort" zone.  It had extra leg room and was at a spot in the plane where there was only 2 seats, ours , side by side.

This blog is again playing catchup. We traveled to the glowworm caves on Thursday, March 22 at Waitomo from Taupo, it was a 2 hr trip one way and the weather was a mix of sun and cloud but no rain at that point.

We arrived early for our planned 1230 start and went through the safety briefing and got into our caving gear. In Canada we sometimes call caving Spelunking, but don't ask me why and I asked one of the guides if they knew the word and I kinda got a blank look so caving it is!

Naomi does have a "reluctance" for tight spaces and there were a few of those down there. The pictures you are about to see are the ones taken by our guide Chris from the UK (I thought his name was Cliff, so I apologize if I have it wrong).

Our other guide was Miguel from Spain who wore these very ugly shorts over his wetsuit so we could quickly ID him if we needed to.

Here are a few shots of the facility and us getting geared up.





Function not fashion here.


And here is supermodel Naomi with the latest in spelunking outerwear
O
Yes Naomi it would look great in your garden.....No I am not carrying it back with us

Here are the names of the 3 tours available....sound kinda ominous I think - we completed the Black Labyrinth

While we were underground and basically a captive audience, our guide Chris gave us the biology behind the whole glowworm thing......what glows is the feces of these larvae......hows that for an explanation!
Okay sit back, relax and try and overcome any claustrophobic tendencies that you might have as you explore with us the underworld of Waitomo!!!

The group before we started....totally unaware of what to expect


Here is Miguel in his butt ugly shorts describing how to do the flying leap backwards



Before we went underground we all practiced jumping into our tubes...backwards
Naomi looks a little surprised at the water temperature


Of course I made it look easy...no problem here

Not all water entries were gracefully executed


Sort of a sit down Conga line

This is where we practiced the "Tiger Pasta"where we had stay together in a long stretch of water....with lights off. When our guide yells out "Tiger Pasta" we are to form up like this in the dark and then make sure and squeeze to make sure there is a foot in the boot. YES, it has happened before where the foot was not in the boot....not good.
Can anybody see that tiny hole Miguel is pointing at?.....Yep, that's where we go in...

Any second thoughts? Nope, okay lets head in..and oh, the guides say they have almost a 100% survival rate....? Not what Naomi wanted to hear.
And in we went
We had another quick safety briefing first


There was some tight spaces....









Bob was admiring whatever that furry 8 legged critter was just above him




And it is getting tighter and tighter....

Did anybody else feel this rock move?

Just before we turned our lights off...complete blackness...then we saw the glowworms above us


The end is in sight!

Before we entered...

And after we entered....a bit more sore than when we entered but we survived!
Everyone else made it out ok as well
Well, that was our caving experience. There are no pictures of the glowworms and I am not sure why. It was quite incredible to see them above us. Each glowworm had a very thin filament hanging below it, about 6 inches long. The light attracts any fly or insect that happens by and gets stuck on the filament, similar to a spider's web, and gets reeled in and the glowworm larvae drills a hole in the insects head and injects digestive juices that dissolve the internal organs. Then the larvae sucks it up, just like  slurping on a smoothie.

After we made it back to base we undressed and headed for the warm showers followed by hot soup and a bagel.

Next was the 2 hr drive back to Taupo with Naomi driving. We did get some rain on the way back but now we can call ourselves Spelunkers as well as Zorbers and Lugers.

The next blog is about our trip to Hobbiton.

Goodbye for now

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