On the last day in Rotorua we got to go and do the glowworm cave! It was crazy insane. We got up early on Tuesday, cleaned up the house, packed up our things, and headed to hike in a cave full of glowing worms. Sound fun huh? It actually really was.
Once we got to the caves we were put into groups and had to get our wetsuits on. That was a funny experience. They were already wet so they were WAY hard to put on. I literally could not get mine on without help. It was really tight and after all the layers were zipped up we all could barely breath, let alone move our arms and legs. I felt like the little boy on the movie, A Christmas Story when he was all bundled up and would say, "I can't put my arms down." I honestly could not put my arms down haha. It was an awkward, tight, uncomfortable fit, but it would keep me WARMER in the cave water.
After getting suited up, we drove to this pond to get our inner tubes. In order to practice jumping in the water with our tubes, we had to jump from the side of the pond into the water. It was COLD water to jump in and they said it was going to be even colder water in the cave. After practicing our tube jumping, we got back in the van and drove up to the cave. When we first got inside I was a little freaked out. I am very claustrophobic and I couldn't really breath with my wet suit on, so I had to focus all my thoughts on having fun haha.
Once we got into the cave the water was FREEZING. Like literally my hands turned purple when I left them in the water for too long. At the beginning of the cave, we had to get on our inner tubes so that we could float in the water to get under a REALLY LOW rock. We pretty much were laying down flat on our tubs, shimmying underneath this big, low rock to get into the clearing. That freaked me out. But once we got to the other side, the cave opened up more and it had a lot HIGHER ceilings.
After that, we just hiked through the cave in the cold water. Sometimes we would sit on our tubes, other times we would walk, sometimes we would connect our tubes together by holding each others feet (creating what they called the "eel"), and other times we would be jumping off of water falls bum first in our tubes haha.
All along the top of the cave was the glowworms, which was the coolest thing! The guides would tell us to turn off our lights and we would look above us to see the top of the cave glowing with these little green dots. The end was so NEAT when we had to float on our inner tubes in the dark, and just looked at the ceiling at the glowing worm dots (there were also long, thin, string type things hanging from the glowing worms). It reminded me of that space ride at Disney world that is all black with the white, star-looking, lights inside. It was awesome.
Even through the lack of air, tight spaces, and freezing water, I had a lot of fun in the glowworm cave. And afterwords, we got to take a nice HOT shower and were fed tomato soup and a bagel...yumm :).
(It was actually interesting to learn though that the glowing worms weren't technically the worms, it was actually the worms poop haha. So we went in a cave to look at glowworm poop lighting the ceiling!)
Once we got to the caves we were put into groups and had to get our wetsuits on. That was a funny experience. They were already wet so they were WAY hard to put on. I literally could not get mine on without help. It was really tight and after all the layers were zipped up we all could barely breath, let alone move our arms and legs. I felt like the little boy on the movie, A Christmas Story when he was all bundled up and would say, "I can't put my arms down." I honestly could not put my arms down haha. It was an awkward, tight, uncomfortable fit, but it would keep me WARMER in the cave water.
After getting suited up, we drove to this pond to get our inner tubes. In order to practice jumping in the water with our tubes, we had to jump from the side of the pond into the water. It was COLD water to jump in and they said it was going to be even colder water in the cave. After practicing our tube jumping, we got back in the van and drove up to the cave. When we first got inside I was a little freaked out. I am very claustrophobic and I couldn't really breath with my wet suit on, so I had to focus all my thoughts on having fun haha.
Once we got into the cave the water was FREEZING. Like literally my hands turned purple when I left them in the water for too long. At the beginning of the cave, we had to get on our inner tubes so that we could float in the water to get under a REALLY LOW rock. We pretty much were laying down flat on our tubs, shimmying underneath this big, low rock to get into the clearing. That freaked me out. But once we got to the other side, the cave opened up more and it had a lot HIGHER ceilings.
After that, we just hiked through the cave in the cold water. Sometimes we would sit on our tubes, other times we would walk, sometimes we would connect our tubes together by holding each others feet (creating what they called the "eel"), and other times we would be jumping off of water falls bum first in our tubes haha.
All along the top of the cave was the glowworms, which was the coolest thing! The guides would tell us to turn off our lights and we would look above us to see the top of the cave glowing with these little green dots. The end was so NEAT when we had to float on our inner tubes in the dark, and just looked at the ceiling at the glowing worm dots (there were also long, thin, string type things hanging from the glowing worms). It reminded me of that space ride at Disney world that is all black with the white, star-looking, lights inside. It was awesome.
Even through the lack of air, tight spaces, and freezing water, I had a lot of fun in the glowworm cave. And afterwords, we got to take a nice HOT shower and were fed tomato soup and a bagel...yumm :).
(It was actually interesting to learn though that the glowing worms weren't technically the worms, it was actually the worms poop haha. So we went in a cave to look at glowworm poop lighting the ceiling!)
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| We did the Black Labyrinth cave option. Inner tubes and all! |
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| We look pretty good....especially since we can barely lift our arms up. |
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| Brooke got handed two different colored boots. |
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| Gotta love us roommates :) |
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| Here we GO!! |
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| Practicing our "eel" position for inside the cave. |
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| Walking to the pond to practice jumping in with our tubes. |
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| Practicing the "eel" again by holding each others feet. There were actually real eels in the freshwater in the cave. I didn't see them, but some of the other girls did. I'm glad I didn't...it would have freaked me out! |
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| And this is how we jumped into the water in the cave...and off the waterfalls in the cave. |
I know my face is GREAT in this picture. The water was FREEZING and we weren't even in the cave yet.
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| Entering the cave. . . |
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| Let's get going! |
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| cold cold water!!! |
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| Very tight space, but I did it and had fun! |
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| Floating down the water in our tubes...here's Mikaela. |
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| Here's me! |
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| And here's Brittany!! I liked coasting in the water like this on the tubes. |
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| The end is in sight! |
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| We did it! |
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| All done :) |
Here's some cool pictures that show the cave more, this wasn't our group but it shows exactly what we did and what we saw!
Glowworms...I mean...glowworms POOP on the ceiling of the cave!
It was funny to jump back first off the waterfalls into the water on our tubes!
There's those stringy things I was talking about! Crazy crazy!
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| Nothing like hiking in a cave full of glowing worm poop in cold water :) |
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