After our morning coffee and a quick attempt to find Marian a cheap bathing suit for the day’s adventure we left Raglan and headed to Wiatomo for the Legendary Blackwater Rafting Companies Black Abyss Cave Tour.
We got to the tour company and checked in and got changed into our wetsuits for the tour. Luckily they had a swimsuit for Marian to borrow. Here we are all changed and ready to go:
The group, which consisted of us, a couple from San Diego and the two tour guides, got in the van and left to the Ruakuri Caves. We were trained on how to abseil (Kiwi for repel). Once everyone was comfortable we entered the cave by abseiling 35 meters down into the cave:
Once in the cave they explained that these caves were from the ocean floors being pushed up millions of years ago. They then showed us the fossils in the rocks as their proof. We continued into the cave and came to the flying fox (Kiwi for zip line). Everyone turned their lights off to take the flying fox in the dark. It was a lot of fun not knowing when we would stop. After the flying fox we had a quick snack and a group picture:
We continued the tour by grabbing an inner tube and jumping off a 3 meter (high estimate) ledge into the water. Being as we were in a cave it was very dark and you really couldn’t tell the distance to the water. The loud slap of the inner tube hitting the water also made it sound a lot worse than it was. Needless to say, Marian was scared to make the jump but everyone was proud of her. Here we are jumping off the ledge (John is first than Marian):
We continued by floating in the cold water. We paddled up stream to see all of the glowworms. It was during this part of the trip where the guy from San Diego asked about the giant eels in the water that can be up to 6 or 8 feet long. The tour guide dodged the question saying she doesn’t like to think about it. After seeing the glowworms we continued in the cave. John went through the small rock formation called the birthing canal, can’t see how it got its name:
It was a tight fit. We then continued through the twists and turns finishing the tour by climbing up 2 waterfalls.
We at this point had finished the Black Abyss tour. Since it was a small group we did it fast enough the tour guides decided to also tag on the Black Labyrinth tour. So, we grabbed some tubes outside of the cave and headed back in the cave. We floated through more glowwarms and saw more of the cave. At one point we jumped off a fall small waterfall into the water.
They showed us a small eel named Lily that was very protective of her little home. We floated through more of the cave and finished the tour and went outside to the night.
After the tour they gave us a snack back at the office. It was here the second tour guide mentioned he saw one of the giant eels in the portion of the cave where the guy from San Diego asked about them but the guide chose not to point it out. Marian was very thankful for this.
We went to the Top 10 Holiday park to warm up in the hot tub and rested for our trip to Taranaki the next day.
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