January 13

Waitomo: Gruesome Twosome

It was a rainy morning. After breakfast, I walked a section of the bushwalk, beginning in the same place as last night, but going further, beyond the Glow Worm Cave. I walked back to look at the exit (historically, the entrance) of the cave. A lot of busses were parked here now, with large numbers of tourists, especially Japanese. A little gift shop at the cave entrance was open now, but it was expensive and I didn't buy anything.

I went to the information desk at the Cave Museum and found that there is an afternoon bus to Rotorua, so I would have time for a Black Water Rafting trip in the morning tomorrow. I made a booking for this. I also checked in at the next desk for my "Gruesome Twosome", the combined Lost World and Haggas Honking Holes tours I had scheduled for today. Admission to the museum was included with the cave tours, so I toured the Cave Museum before stopping at the cafe for lunch. I figured I would need a lot of energy today, so I got a steak and onion pie plus a sausage roll and chocolate cake square.

After lunch, I returned to the desk in the Cave Museum to check in for the Lost World tour. Two elderly people there were trying to figure out which tour their travel agent had booked them on. It appeared to be the Haggas Honking Holes, which is much more difficult than the Lost World tour offered by the same company. But they said they wanted a tour in a wet cave, and the half-day Lost World tour is dry. There is a wet version of the Lost World, but that is a day-and-a-half trip, which begins with rappeling instruction, followed by a full-day cave trip. They were shown a video from Haggas Honking Holes, and the lady indicated that this was not at all what she was expecting, with lots of crawling through water and rappeling in waterfalls and squeezing through holes. She was wearing a lacy white dress, and I wondered what she thought she was getting herself into. The people at the desk suggested they probably would be happier with the Lost World tour.

Two Germans came in who were signed up for the 12:00 Lost World tour I was on, and were disappointed to learn that the half-day tour was dry, so they switched to the Haggas Honking Holes tour. I think a lot of people are confused about this, since there are two different Lost World tours. That left me alone on the half-day trip, so they asked if I wanted to do the long version instead. However, I didn't want to stay another full day in Waitomo, since that would leave me with no time in Rotorua. The elderly couple decided by now that they would do the Lost World half-day trip, so it turned out that I was no longer alone.

We ended up leaving the Cave Museum an hour late. We had two guides, a young lady named Kim for me, and a man for the elderly couple. We drove out to a sheep farm to begin. The Lost World is a big hole in the ground, 100 meters deep, surrounded by trees. It is a former cave whose roof had collapsed. There is still a cave continuing on beyond the opening.

We put on overalls, a harness, helmet, lights, and gumboots. It was still raining intermittently. Sheep grazed around the landscape scattered with "pancake rock" limestone outcroppings. We began with a practice walk along a safety rope down to an overlook into the Lost World. This was for practice learning how to use the clips on our harnesses. Then we went around to the other side of the pit, where a metal platform was set up, with a number of ropes dropping 100 meters into the wide hole.

We approached using safety ropes and climbed down to the platform on metal ladders, and then sat on a bar hanging over the edge. Anyone afraid of heights would probably be panicking now. The guides helped to connect our racks and gave some instructions. This would be a tandem rappel, with the guides connected to us with webbing. They would follow on adjacent ropes, so we could not fall too far if we did anything wrong. The day-and-a-half trip does not use a tandem system, but begins with a few hours of instruction instead.

It was a free rappel to the bottom. We all started out together, but Kim and I went faster than the others. I could control the pace. I had my small camera, and we stopped a few times to take pictures. I had 400 speed film in the camera today, which was the fastest I could find in Waitomo. (I had expected a cave town would have some faster film than this.) The film turned out to be mostly adequate. The hole was lush and green, with a mist hanging in it. Weird stalactite-like rock formations hung near the top.

About half way down, we passed a ledge. As the weight of the rope below decreased, there was less tension on the rack to hold us back. Kim said to wrap the rope over one foot for more control. We took about twenty minutes to descend, which is typical. The couple was a few minutes behind. Once at the bottom, we made our way into the big cave opening at the far end. It would have been possible to go the other way too, but probably wetter. A stream flowed along the bottom, and we followed it uphill.

At the entrance to the cave, we had a break for candy bars and orange juice. The ceiling was 100 meters above, with a few holes. I posed for a couple of pictures before we went on. As the cave became darker, we turned on our lights. We saw a big fossilized oyster. Further in, we came to a hanging ladder, made of metal bars strung between wires. The male guide climbed it, while the rest of us went on to a place with a low ceiling and some small stalactites. We turned out our lights and saw that the ceiling was covered with glow worms.

We walked back to the hanging ladder. This was our way out. The elderly lady went first. A rope was attached to her harness. The ladder is climbed with one leg and one arm wrapped around it to keep close. The guide at the top pulled up on the rope for assistance, and to prevent a fall. He used a pulley and counterweight system. This ladder was about 40 meters high. The top was not really visible from the bottom. I went second, and left my camera with Kim so she could take a picture of me. Kim came up last, climbing the rope with ascenders.

The guides were impressed with how quickly we all climbed the ladder, which was a bit strenuous even with assistance, and they asked the couple's ages. They were 61 and 58, and were in excellent condition. They said they work out and run regularly. The lady turned out to be a juvenile detention officer. She was obviously pretty tough, even though she was wearing a lacy white dress under her overalls. They probably could have done the Haggas Honking Holes. We still had a long climb to go, up a series of walks, climbs and ladders, using safety ropes when needed. We arrived at the surface through a big hole a short walk from the hole we entered.

We got back to the cave museum at 5:00 and had 15 minutes to get something to eat before the 5:15 Haggas Honking Holes tour which would complete my Gruesome Twosome. Kim would be guiding this one as well. I hurried to the cafe next door for another meat pie and chocolate cake, and returned as the check-in began.

As a test, everyone going on the Haggas Honking Holes tour had to crawl through a small demonstration tunnel in the museum. There would be twelve people on this tour, all fairly young, with three guides, including the two from the afternoon Lost World tour, and a Maori. We drove to a nearby farm (owned by a man named Haggas), and went into a sheep barn to change into wetsuits. We wore red coveralls over the wetsuits, plus helmet, harness, rack, and gumboots. The lights had high- and low-beam settings.

We split into two groups and went into sheep pens in the barn (still used for sheep at other times) for some rappeling instruction. Normally, they do this on a slope outside, but it was raining hard now. It was a short drive and a short walk to the entrance hole. We sat there and introduced ourselves. The Maori led the first group in, and Kim (also known as Kimbo) led the second, which included me. The other guide followed.

The cave started with a steep climb down to the first rappel, about 30 meters, the highest one in this cave. It followed a narrow waterfall, but it was not necessary to get wet, except for walking in the stream. Some sheep bones were found along the way. Sheep sometimes fall into the holes, and one guide said he once rescued one. The cave was beautifully decorated, with stalactites, stalagmites, flowstone, cave coral and soda straws everywhere. The guides warned not to touch the "pretty white stuff", the delicate formations common throughout the cave.

The second rappel was a wet one down a short but strong waterfall. Rappelling down a waterfall probably sounds like more fun than it is at the time, especially when you are directly inside the water. At the bottom, we had to find where the water was flowing, and follow it. This took me a minute. It turned out to be flowing through a low crawl-space. This passage, like some others we would come to, was so low I could not keep my face completely dry.

We slid down one waterfall, aided by a guide with a rope at the top. We got a close-up look at some glow worms. We saw soda straws a couple feet long. When we got to the deepest part of the cave, 65 meters below the surface, the stream went through a sumped passage, which the guide said could be passed by holding your breath for 30 seconds. We headed back up at that point via a different route.

We raced with Kim through one winding section, and stopped for hard toffee candy bars and lemonade. Then we came to a free climb, which was not too hard. I went first, and got the job of attaching the safety line to each person at the next big ladder, calling "up rope" to Kimbo at the top when they were ready to climb. I was the last one up the ladder, attaching my own rope.

Then there was a series of tight climbs and crawls, where we followed a rope through a series of narrow passages with some steep parts. After more climbing, we emerged under the waterfall we first rappeled down. More ladders and climbs brought us to the exit, just over the hill from the entrance. It was now dusk.

We climbed back up to the bus, went back to the sheep barn, and changed and showered before returning to Waitomo. Many people on the trip planned to go to the pub, which had live music tonight, since it was Saturday. I went down after I got cleaned up at the hostel. At 10:30, they were shutting down the kitchen, so I just got a beer, a Mainland Dark Ale, which was passable but not great. I was sorry I missed the pizza. I did see a few other people from the Haggas Honking Holes. I was tired and didn't stay too long. Back at the hostel, two guys in the bunk room were talking about religions until late. I went to bed around 11:30.

Copyright Scott A. Yost, 1996. All rights reserved.