Abseils, gloworms and "piss - ant towns"

I thought the term “piss – ant town” had been written for Hamilton, even though it claims to be Nz’s 4th largest ‘city’. When we arrived there I thought someone was having me on by calling it a ‘city’ but to be fair it was actually very nice. It’s situated on the Waikato River, which is not exactly the Thames but is big by NZ standards. We had a few hours to kill so instead of wandering around the towns plush green parks and stroll along the Waikato river we decided to go to the cinema and watch Twilight (which was ok but has a rad soundtrack!). We did get to stroll along the main drag, which is called Victoria Street, and I was amazed at two things. One, how many restaurants and bars there were in such a short stretch of road and two, just how many pregnant women there were in Hamilton. It seemed that Hamiltonions like nothing more than to get each other pregnant! (probably after getting drunk in all those bars) I think if I ever recommend any of my midwifery colleagues to work in NZ, it’d have to be in Hamilton. We could all make a killing with a breast feeding café or a maternity clothes shop or by offering active birth classes!

We only stayed in Hamilton for one night before heading out to the coast again to a town called Kawhia. Now this was definitely a “piss – ant town!!” Kawhia consists of 2 restaurants, a bar, a general store and a petrol station. It has a population of 670 bored Kiwis! So why go there I hear you ask? Well, there is a very touristy location up on the Coromandel peninsula called Hot Water Beach and it gets very crowded. Kawhia has exactly the same phenomenon but way less crowded. Basically, just before low tide you can dig yourself a hole on the beach and hot spring water will bubble up from the sand making your own personal Oceanside, beach hot tub. We got there just after low tide and the beach was packed with over one family there, but they were just leaving, handily vacating their little hot tub. We were so tired after the long climb over the sand dunes that by the time we got to the hot tub we just popped our toes into it, took some pictures and headed back. It was cool, well warm really but we were just too damn tired and a big ass storm was hitting.

We left Kawhia very quickly the next morning hoping to avoid the rush hour but unluckily got stuck slap-bang in the middle of it! How can a “piss – ant town” possibly have a rush hour? Easy when the local farmer is transporting about a thousand sheep along the main highway!! Nah, it was actually quite amusing and fascinating to watch the farmer send his sheep dogs off to get random sheep that had strolled off into someone’s garden to munch on some marigolds or got themselves stuck in a ditch.

So yesterday we arrived here in Waitomo. Not quite a “piss – ant town” but bloody close. Waitomo is famous for having this awesome cave system, which are inhabited, in places, by gloworms. You can also do lots of other cave-related things like rock climbing, abseiling, pot holing, caving, underground zip lines and black water rafting. We decided to book ourselves a package that pretty much had everything but was also quite cheap. Cheap, as we found out, meant actually zero luxuries and a moody fucking guide called Neil. He was from England so I thought we’d all have a laugh taking the piss out of the two French blokes in our 6-man group but Neil turned out to be a total dick! He was very impatient and you could see that he had lost a lot of his enthusiasm for his job. That said, our lives were quite literally in his hands so I decided to not call him a dick to his face. The trip started with suiting up. Cheap also meant really manky smelly wetsuits and helmets, but hey, we were about to go 100 metres underground, we were probably gonna get a bit mucky. Once we were all suited up we had the usual safety lectures. It was funny though as Neil let us do all the line attaching. Usually, when I have caved or abseilled before, the guides are very particular about attaching you to safety lines and abseil ropes. After a few little practices down a hillside Neil selected me to be the first to do the big 30-metre abseil. He said he could see that I knew what I was doing. Me, who had abseiled twice in my life and been caving once, and with a kick ass hang over at the time so it shouldn’t really count, surely? Well, I connected my various ropes to my various hook things and while I was psyching myself up for the big drop in, Neil asked me to sit down. I assumed he meant on the edge of the platform overhanging the drop but when I sat I was suspended off the floor already. For me the scariest thing about abseiling is actually leaning backwards over the drop but in this case I went over already suspended. It was way cool. I soon whizzed down the drop at break neck speed using my feet to protect myself from the rock face. I landed very gracefully, unhooked all my ropes and made my way to the waiting area to watch Kate make her descent.

I couldn’t really see her going over the edge but laughed as I saw her bouncy off the rock face with her arse! She landed with a bit of a thud but had a big smile on her face. We then waited for the rest of the group. Neil had obviously had enough of the slow French guy at the back and basically let him just drop down the rock face. He survived though, darn!

After we had all congregated at the waiting area, Neil instructed us to collect our big rubber inner tubes (for black water rafting) and for me to lead everyone into the cave. It was stunning! The cold water was up to my chin in places but I managed to find mostly shallow spots for the guys following me. We waded along for a while before reaching a dead end. We all waited for Neil but after about 5 minutes I wondered if we had lost him. I took the leadership role and decided to lead everyone back a little to where I could see Neils headlamp off in the distance. When we got back to Neil he had a right go at us for leaving our guide! Prick! What was I supposed to do? He told me to go so I did. I made sure we all stayed together but he was bringing up the rear and made no indication for us to stop. I think he was trying to teach us a lesson about staying with your guide but all it did for me was reinforce the fact that the guy was a complete wanker!

We then all got on our rubber rings, turned our headlamps off and floated out past all the gloworms. Not always facing the right direction, and for my fat arse, not always upright! They are so amazing and it’s such a shame that I couldn’t bring my bad ass camera! I’m sure it has a special function for photographing glowing subterranean fungus gnat larvae. Ok, maybe not. Anyway, we continued on our way, floating along or getting off for some of the faster rapids and wading along through the water. We left our rubber tubes at one spot and continued further into the cave. So far that there were no more gloworms. Instead Neil decided we should try to squeeze ourselves through some little holes. All good mucky fun, except the super skinny hole that me and Kate weren’t able to squeeze through. We then stopped for a warm glass of Ribena and a chunk of Diary milk. Man, I haven’t had warm Ribena since I was a kid and seem to remember only being given it if I was ill. The chocolate was good though.

After our impromptu lunch we headed back to the spot we were all dropped into the cave system for our ascent back up. We all had to watch as Neil showed us how the 30-metre rock climb should be done. Kate was a bit sceptical about it, especially since it was quite high, she had never really rock climbed before, the rocks were wet and she was wearing white wellies which were full of water. Amazingly though she made it up with no problems at all. I was very proud as we all know that even though Kate is at the peak of health and physical fitness (ahem!); she sometimes just can’t be arsed!

I scampered up and just as I was getting into my stride, made it to the top. We then all waited for the other girl in our group, a mardy Estonian cow who had the right hump cos she had earlier twisted her ankle but hadn’t really get into the spirit of the day. She took her time but I just didn’t care. We were perched on a rocky edifice, overlooking stunning fauna hanging over an amazing cave. As I said to Neil, “nice office.” He even managed to break a smile, the miserable twat!

We now stink of cave and sweaty wetsuit even though we have both had two showers! Hopefully we will smell a bit more palatable by the time we get to our next stop, New Plymouth.

Peace

D

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