jimbo01 0 Report post Posted June 15, 2008 (edited) My wife left for LA and tto catch up with fiends, and catch the Las Vegas Goege Michael concert next weekend so I thought to myself, what can I get up to while she is away. The answer was a return to something I did when i was in my teens and 20's - caving. We left at 5am on Saturday and drove from Wellington to Waitomo. It's been over 11 years since my last caving trip to this area, and surprise, surprise found the cave 1st attempt (up the hill from the downstream entrance of Gardners Gut). Rigged a rope to access lower levels and took a while to remeber and tie the appropiate knot. 8 year old daughter raced down the rope (hand over hand, walking down rock face, not abseiling) like an old hand, 11 year old son was a little less confident but nailed. Overall Kids loved it, and especially climbing the rope to get out at the end. There is talk of a next time with mum. So mission accomplisshed - get kids into stuff dad. I now have tramping, caving, and skiing on that list. Observations: LED lighting is so much better than old incandesent bulbs. My mate had one of my old lighting rigs - so dim, and so yellow! The rest of us acutally turned down the power on our LED systems so he didn't notice the diffference so much. The sooner this is standard on cars the better. An extra 15kg makes climbing up a rope a LOT harder, and make caving overalls an unflattering fit! How come it's so easy to get lost AFTER you come out of a cave? We ended up in the Waitomo stream about 200 meters above where we left it to find our cave entrance - which resulted in up just wading down the stream between towering limestone cliffs. Really really cool though - almost worth getting lost for. nast ythought though, 10 meters to the left or right and we may have gone over those cliffs! How come something you remember as "easy", and took 20 girl guides through, seems really risky when it's your own kids on the rope? Why does the Waitome pub "curlies bar" have signs claiming "Open for food", "food now", "bistro open" etc. 5 hunger and thristy souls venture inside and when we ask for a menu, the bar tend points to some eta chips and says "that it, we don't open for food till 5pm". I guess they put the signs out ealy in the back blocks - beer was nicely cold though. Stayed in Rotorua and had visions of a nice soak in the Polynesain Spa, except the family pools was closed. Ended up 5 of us in a private pool for 2! Not 1 cop on the trip up (escort 9500 on), or from Waitomo to Rotorua Cops like fleas on a dog on SHW1 from Taupo to Bulls with the Escort telling us "ka band detecteded" over and over and over. They don't signpost no exit roads arround Tekuiti - we sampled a couple and ended up in cow / sheep padocks with some very unamused farmers looking on. I'm so glad we took the Mitsi Outlander and not the BMW - the outlander is covered in mud and sh*t (litterally). Next weekend we are going to try something else - it was meant top be skiing but there's not much snow about yet. Any suggestions that are family friendly? Edited June 15, 2008 by jimbo Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Creaver 55 Report post Posted June 15, 2008 Sounds like you had an awesome time, i've been meaning to go and check them out myself. How much does it cost to enter the caves? Thought of heading up to cape reinga and check out the lighthouse etc? (probably a bit of a drive from welly) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jimbo01 0 Report post Posted June 15, 2008 (edited) Sounds like you had an awesome time, i've been meaning to go and check them out myself. How much does it cost to enter the caves? Thought of heading up to cape reinga and check out the lighthouse etc? (probably a bit of a drive from welly) I'd highly recommend the Ruakuri cave. In the area there are also has some spectaclar walks up and over a natural tunnel, through which the Waitomo stream passes, before reaching the waitomo flow worm caves. We did that as tourists back in January - I think it was at least $50 each, may have been more. The trips are small (about 14), and the cave is realy amazing. They dug a new entrance and you access it via a big spiral staircase, and an airlock. The old entrance is tapu as it has burial gaves about it. By the way if you follw the waitomo stream up from the Ruakuri natural brige (there is no track) you will come to the down stream entrance of Gardners Gut with is a 12 km cave system. I't worth a quick look (you will get your feet muddy on the "track", and wet in the cave"). There are heaps of cave weta's, spoted by my son who beat a hasty retreat. My daughter went in anohter 10 meters or so, looked at a huge weta for a bit then decided to go back, but adament that she was not put off by the weta. We did cape reinga a copule of years ago, including 90 mile beach etc (stayed at coopers beach). May get back there this coming summer. however we could try castle cliff lighthouse in the Waiarapa - thanks for the idea. Edited June 15, 2008 by jimbo Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Creaver 55 Report post Posted June 15, 2008 Thankyou, please let us know what you do...school holidays will be around before you know it. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
