Climbing waterfalls deep in Waitomo Caves NZ
Rotorua is one awesome place.
This place is filled with natural hot springs and mud pools, you’ll find all sorts of geothermal activity around this area.
Doesn’t matter of you are driving in the woods or in the town itself, you will see steam clouds all over.
Bubbling up from holes in the middle of nowhere or in some ones backyard!
We stayed at this super cool place, Cozy cottage thermal holiday park.
Which were just 5 minutes outside the city center and right by the big lake.
This place was right on the beach, but this beach was a bit special!
You bring a shovel to it and start digging a hole, after a meter or so you’ll see hot water filling up the hole!
So you can create your own mineral hot spring chill out!
Watch out because the water gets a bit too hot sometimes, boiling so mix it with some of the cold water from the lake.
One of the days we went for downhill mountain biking in the Redwood forest.
For 35NZD you get a proper bike and helmet for 2 hours.
There’s tracks for everyone from beginner to extreme!
Many professional downhill mountain bikers consider this to be one of the best rides in the world!
It was the first time doing this for both of me and Erin , we loved it and for sure we are doing it again.
Erin did one proper crash and left with bruises and pride of that’s how you do it for the first time!
I was really close to!
It’s a dangerous sport, so people that dare to try this out, respect!
After spending two days there we decided to book an extreme caving adventure down at Waitomo caves, about 1.5 hours west of Rotorua.
We found out about this from a couple of brochures we found at the tourist information I-Site in town.
From there we did our own research and found this company The Blackwater Rafting co, which had some really intense awesome packages.
We booked the Into Abyss one, which was a 5 hour adventure through the caves, starting out with a 35 meter abseiling down into the abyss through a “hourglass” hole!
First we got an introduction course in how to work the abseiling equipment.
Wet suit, boots, helmet and a harness.
Such an epic experience!
So stoked to do all of that!
We were about 8 people in the group together with two really funny and professional instructors.
35 meters down we all turned on the light and continued down into this massive 5km cave system.
Up in the ceiling it looks like blueish LED lights all over, glow worms!
From here it was no technical skills needed.
First stop was at the zip lining and Erin was the first one to go!
It was all dark and you couldn’t see at all where you were going.
She disappeared into the dark and after a while a big BOOM went off!!
What the hell happened!?
The instructor shouting that she hit her head.
You could hear Erin saying, – Nooo I did not!?
It was pretty confusing for all of us still up a level in the cave.
We connected me to the zip line and then it was my turn to go down.
While flying in the air for a few seconds another BOOM went off!
One of the instructors was blowing off firecrackers to fuck around with us! Hah!
It made the whole experience scarier, thrilling!
About 50 meters down sat down next to a underground river and turned of our lights.
This place was filled with these glow worms, the more they glow the hungrier they are!
Google them!
Then we got one tube each, time to explore this cave floating in a tube!
We floated on our backs for a pretty long time.
From big halls to narrow tunnels.
All so awesome!
These glow worms make it look like you are in a dream, so unreal.
65 meters below surface was our deepest point, but from here we had to go up!
The only way up was to climb waterfalls!
Such a sick experience doing all this, and you feel safe while doing it!
I recommend everyone that travel to New Zealand, do this!
It’s worth the 235NZD, 100%.
We are doing more downhill mountain biking and climbing for sure!
