Underground in the Down Under

So I am completely exhausted from the awesomeness of today and possibly delirious, so I can not promise what I write will be coherent or even mildly entertaining but I will try my hardest because today was probably one of my FAVORITE days in the NZ yet.

Today was the day I went CAVING!!! We went to the Piripiri (sp?) road end caves. It was just a 40 minute drive out there. The whole time I am driving out there I am thinking what the heck am I getting myself into? Tempted to back out I decided NO I am definietly going underground and that was that. Next thing I know, I find myself hanging by rope and harness off a bridge and I am lowering myself into a crack in Good Old Mother Earth's crust. We probably repelled about 10 to 15 meters. Little did I know that at that point the repelling part was the least of my worries. I actually thought it was really fun and would 100% do it again. In fact I would do everything I did today again. So I get down and unhook my harness, and am left standing in a big room (cave) there are some ferns and a stream and it looks like a nice little place. I think to myself "oh this is caving I can completely do this." I then see a rope leading up to a hole in the side of a rock wall and am told we are standing in a canyon NOT a cave and the cave we will be exploring is the hole in the side of the wall. What I am not a gecko, no sticky feet here, so exactly how am I supposed to get to that hole in the side of the wall. With much effort and alot of deep breathes I am able to use the rope to climb to the hole in said wall. My hands were so tired I felt like I had just skiied a whole set. I sit at the cave entrance and wait for Terra. She gets to the top and we are greeted with a huge hole in the ground filled with water. That is where we learned that by getting wet while caving is an understatement. We were in chest high water at some points. (which just made it that much cooler)


Next we wade through some water, get stuck at this very tight crack, but make it through all on our own. Some people were ahead of us and the trip leaders were at the bottom helping get more people up. So it wasn't like we were completely on our own or anything. Finally, some skilled cavers catch up with us. We keep on heading further and further in walking through water, laughing hysterically (waders though would have made it funnier), climbing over rocks and occassionally turning our head torches off to see some glow worms. The rest of the trip was pretty awesome and involved lots of climbing and me thinking there is no WAY I can do this, and then coming to the realisation of "oh hey, I just did that!" There were times where the only thing holding you up was the fact you were wedged between 2 rocks and having to shimmy across to get through, some of these if you became "unwedged" you could have fallen like 2 meters. I definitely have the bruises and scrapes to prove my work though haha! We had to use some ropes to climb in and out and off and onto ledges and cracks. There was lots of team work like Terra supporting the weight of my whole body (aka butt) with her face to help me climb out and me pulling the "beached whale" out of some cracks. There was also this big mud pit that was the softest mud ever and we had some fun playing in it. ie: mud facials and mud artwork on Russel's white coveralls.


Now for the leaving of the cave...we had to go out the way we came in, I was dreading this becasue of my slight panic attack / inability to get up the wall to enter the cave and now that my arms are tired I have to climb down a rock wall? So we head out and I am in the lead there is one point that is a very tight sqeeze for probably 3 meterish. Oh on a side note while in the cave I had seen some pretty big spiders but from a distance and heard rumours of there being wetas in there. (I bravely chose to ignore all this) Ok so during this tight sqeeze your face is probaby no more than 6 inches away from the rock and to my surprise my face met one GIGANTIC spider. I let out the loudest scream and instant panic takes over my body. On the way in I must have not noticed the gigantic quantities of spiders that reside in this part of the cave becasue I was still experiencing shock from just being in a cave. I began looking everywhere and all I could see was spiders and then I saw a weta and I absoulutely lost it! I am embarassed to actually be writing this. I do not know what I was thinking in this time of panic, but I sat down in the middle of the path/stream and bear hugged Terra's leg and refused to let go. My heart was going about a mile and minute and I don't think I was breathing. However, I eventually realised we were almost at the cave opening, so from that point on it was eye on the prize time; we are getting the heck out of here. Nobody else even flinched about the BUGS! While waiting for some people to descend down, my panic over the bugs doubled due to my fear of descending back down into the canyon. We were waiting in this little room covered in spiders!!!! I just had to get out and was soon half way down the rock wall, where it was spider and weta free and could finally feel my heart rate adjust back to that of a normal human being.


Just some side notes:

1. Wetas and spiders alone are bad, but when put in a cave they are even worse.
2. I completely surprised myself in my abilites today. Normally do not consider myself brave in rock climbing type situations...but I loved every minute of it.
3. The hardest and scariest (well except the spiders) was the entering and exiting of the cave.
4. I really did feel like spider man (I can scale walls) and a fragglerock! --just wish there were big harry giants at the top of the cave.
5. I would definetly go caving again...because: physically challenging, good time with friends (lots of laughs, get to use your mind...figure out how to get around obstacles, and everything (except cave bugs) was awesome.
6. Glow worms are really cool...did not give them enough credit above.

I am not reading this because I am going to bed...so hope it makes sense. Love you Jane