The Fantastic 4 all suited up for the Lost World adventure. Pictured from left-to-right: Catherine (England), Arnaud (France), Jude/me (New Jersey/USA), Jason (San Francisco/USA)
Jason leans back and points below through "The Window", which drops 80 meters or so down to the cave floor. The ground appears white, as the fern-covered floor reflects sunlight coming in from the main (larger) abseil entrance.
Arnaud expresses the feeling perfectly.
Catherine rather enjoys being secured by the two "cow's tails" extending from her harness to the safety line.
Me representing the east coast. A tight wet suit and white boots really do not flatter me.
One of our wicked-cool guides Ryan from Hamilton/NZ does a safety check on Jason and me before we abseil approximately 100 meters down to the floor below.
Abseiling is viewed by climbers as being more dangerous than climbing, as the rope system is taking the weight of the practitioner constantly rather than only in the event of a fall. Indeed, a high percentage of accidents classified as "climbing accidents" actually occur when abseiling. Cheers!
Just below jason is a small stream surrounded by ferns. Jason tells me he has a thing about heights.
Arnaud and Catherine getting ready.
This abseiling thing reminds us all of the move "The Descent". Except we're hoping there are no real cave monsters.
We each abseil down one of these 10 ropes that hang from the platform above. These are very heavy ropes, and for safety reasons are replaced every 600 or so users.
A shaft of light enters the cave. Ferns only grow where light can enter the mouth of the cave.
More ferns growning just above us.
Glorious light.
We make it down the abseil just fine, though hoping for a bit more speed on the ropes. All the friction creates a lot of heat which can cause the rope to glaze... not a good thing,
Jason embraces the last bit of light.
Catherine and Arnaud
You tell me, does this wetsuit make me look fat?
Catherine's silhouette.
Jason's adventure pose.
Arnaud's pose.
I point to the light from which we entered.
We pull ourselves forward and up by this rope, and onto a ledge where we make it up to an upper room within the cave. We swim through a slightly winding channel of water (deeper than my head). When we reach the top of the chamber, Gavin (one of our guides) tells us how jump through a hole in the floor after turning off our lights. Jason and I think he's kidding at first; then, they say lights out, and Ryan our other guide actually completes the deed. We all take our turns jumping into the "Jaws of Death", which is a 10 foot drop back into this frothy mess. Don't ask me why this foam is brown... I'd rather not know myself.
Just before this photo, we were wading through 3 feet of cave water in complete darkness... navigating only by touch of the right-hand side wall. To punish any cheaters that flicked on their lights, Gavin hid in a outcove of brown froth and transformed into a cave monster.
I jump through a small water fall.
Me, crawling through a narrow passage that's about 2m wide and just high enough to fit a lage man's chest.
The "after" shot. A group definitely pleased with a tour that exceed our expectations... now that I think of it, they never asked us to sign any insurance or disclaimer forms. I LOVE New Zealand. Thank you so much to your guides, Ryan and Gavin.
