New Zealand is the world capital of extreme adventure activities. I wrote that with zero factual information to back it up, but as a matter of fact, I just typed "extreme adventure activity capital" into Google and the first four results are all about New Zealand. If you're an adrenaline junkie, this is the country for you.
While I did partake in a whole lot of adventure activities throughout my time there (base jumping, bungee jumping, whitewater sledding, glacier hiking, etc etc), if I could only recommend one to you, it is most definitely blackwater rafting in a little town called Waitomo.
Maybe you've never heard of blackwater rafting. I hadn't. Basically, it's rafting underground. The reason this is a popular activity in Waitomo is because of their famous glowworm caves. Imagine drifting on the water deep in a cave beneath a ceiling illuminated only by glowworms. It's pretty unreal.
In fact, I loved blackwater rafting so much that when I took another trip through the North Island with Lewis a year later, we rented a car and drove back to Waitomo so I could make him do it too.
I will apologize in advance for the lack of decent photos. The only way to get pictures is to buy the ones from the tour which you rely on your guides to take. I did purchase those, but they don't really convey how awesome it all is (not to mention there is a lack of glowworm photos... but do a quick Google Image search and you won't be disappointed).
Waitomo
Basically the only reason you are coming to Waitomo is to see the glowworm caves. You totally don't have to blackwater raft either if you hate fun or whatever. You can just do a walk through the caves. (This is emphatically NOT my recommendation.)
I believe that on the Kiwi Experience tour we stayed overnight at a place called Kiwi Paka. It was such a rush of a visit though I don't think I even checked out the common areas, although I remember a bar and pizzeria being onsite. We basically dropped our stuff when we arrived, jumped straight on the bus to go rafting, came back to shower and change, and then jumped right back on the bus for a night hike. I was too exhausted by the time we got back to go anywhere!
The second time I came up, Lewis and I were staying a few nights in Rotorua. We just rented a car, drove the two hours to Waitomo, did our tours, and drove back the same evening.
As far as the night hike (the only other activity I did in Waitomo), that was really pretty and enjoyable. The whole Kiwi Experience bus drove out to the start of the walk, we all were given candles, and we just walked through the caves in the dark guided by candlelight. We even saw a few stray glowworms. We also brought a water bottle full of whiskey and L&P (lemon & paeroa, a very popular kiwi soft drink), so that helped.
Black Abyss
THE tour that you must do is the Black Abyss. If you really hate heights or don't want to get overly adventurous, you could check out the more popular/cheaper/shorter tour, Black Labyrinth, instead, which will cut out all the abseiling, ziplining, and hiking, leaving you just with the rafting experience.
I wanted the whole package though, and about eight of us from Kiwi Experience did the five hour action-packed Abyss tour. It was incredible!!
After arriving at the Blackwater Rafting Co., we were briefed and then led down to the storage area to gear up in black wetsuits, black booties, actual rubber boots over those, a black wetsuit jacket, and a helmet with headlight. We took our group photos and then were off to the caves!
We did a quick training outdoors where we learned to hook ourselves up to the ropes, release our equipment to abseil, and control our speed. We were right next to the cave opening, so as soon as we were done practicing, we were on our way.
The entrance was... down. The way in was to abseil through a hole into the pitch dark. It was so cool! We each had to take turns. About ten feet down, you reach a narrow, twisting passage to navigate through, after which you can no longer see the light or people above. It's also too dark to see below you, so aside from the small beam of your headlight against the stone, you feel suspended in the middle of nothing.
You squeeze out of the hole into a cavernous area, but it's so pitch black you can't see how large the wall is or how far down you have to go. It turned out it was still quite a ways to the bottom. It was awesome. When you do finally hit the ground, the guide waiting there will unclip you, and you wait for the next person to come through and touch down before you can move to the next room and wait with everybody else on the rocks.
It was already so chilly that we could see our breath. I was dreading getting into the water. High heights, tight spaces, total darkness= yes, exciting. Freezing cold water... that's a bigger concern.
Once everybody had made it into the cave, we headed on to the zipline. It was cool because, again, it was so dark that you couldn't see where you were going as you flew through the cave, but it was way less satisfying than the abseil because the ride ended up being very short and ending abruptly.
When we were all across, we took a break and sat on the rock hanging over the river below. They handed out hot chocolate and soft homemade cookie bars that were amazing and I'd already decided this was probably my favorite tour ever.
After the cocoa break, it was time. We were given round tubes and told to just go ahead and jump off the edge into the cold river. Despite sitting on the tube while you jumped, it was about an 8-10 foot drop before you hit the river, so you were fully submerged in the icy water before popping back up. The thick wetsuits did help, but I was still freezing.
The rafting part of the trip more than made up for the cold. We grabbed a rope along the wall and pulled ourselves down along the cave. Once we'd gone a decent distance, we turned around and formed a chain by each holding the feet of the person behind us. Together we just drifted along slowly beneath the ceiling of glowworms. Seriously, it was one of the coolest things I'd ever seen. It looked like we were floating beneath an underground sky full of stars. So beautiful.
When we reached the point where we'd jumped in, we ditched our rafts and continued the rest of the tour on foot. This is where the Labyrinth tour would differ... well, along with the fact that jumping into the water would have been the beginning (no abseiling or ziplining). You would also spend the rest of the tour on rafts, whereas we on Abyss hiked and climbed the rest of the way.
The water was deep in some areas so the cold was pretty constant, but there were parts where you could climb up around the sides. We reached a little waterslide at one point where we all slid down on our stomachs, and at another section we all had to run off the rocks and jump in again.
We had one more break with a hot orange drink but sadly store-bought cookies which was disappointing.
The final adventure was climbing the waterfalls to make our way out of the cave. The first waterfall we reached by crawling through a tunnel and emerging into a cavern where it was just cascading down around us. Since we had to go one by one, I curled up in a dry nook away from the waterfall spray until I was up. The guide would point at our arms or legs then at the point where we needed to place them next in order to make it up the waterfall. I enjoyed the hell out of it! I love rock climbing but had never done it up any falls (let alone underground falls).
We climbed up a second waterfall following that one, walked through a short section of cave, then surfaced out into the sunlight.
After walking back to the facility, we changed and were able to shower off before meeting back up in the lodge. They had tomato soup and bagels with cream cheese waiting for us which was wonderful.
Of course, photos cost extra, but we split the cost of a flash drive with all the photos of our group, so it wasn't too bad. I loved every moment! That was why I went to the trouble of renting a car and making sure Lewis came up to do the same tour a year later, which brings me to...
Black Odyssey
I loved Black Abyss, but I figured if I was going to have over five hours to kill in Waitomo while Lewis was on the tour, I should try out one of their other offerings. Abyss and Labyrinth aren't the only two options, and I chose the third alternative my next time around... the Black Odyssey.
This one is a little different. It's a dry tour, first of all. The focus is on high ropes. I love heights and ropes courses, so I was kind of excited that I had the opportunity to come back and try this out.
I'm a little confused on timing, because the website seems to list this one as also being 5 hours long, but I was sure it only took 3 or 4. Hm. It's a decent chunk of time either way!
I did have some time to kill after Lewis headed to the Abyss tour, so I drove down the road first to grab lunch at the Huhu Cafe. I mention this because I want to strongly encourage you to eat there. In fact, I liked it so much that I went back again after my tour for dinner as well. It's a nice little restaurant on the second story of a modern building. It has a classy, sunlit interior and pretty balcony overlooking the village. Their food was also outstanding- I had a cauliflower salad for lunch and couscous, lemon yogurt, and eggplant for dinner.
After killing some time reading a book in a booth there, I headed back to catch my Odyssey tour. There ended up only being two other people on it! That put us at five in total including the guides. I did not mind at all since this meant a significantly shorter wait on abseiling and ziplining. Come to think of it, this could be why our tour didn't end up taking five hours.
The uniform was a little different this time. The jumpsuits were orange, the helmet and boots were white, and we were able to leave our regular clothes on underneath since it was a dry tour.
After fitting our harnesses, our guides drove us over to the cave in a van. The entrance was much, much different. We went through a manmade vault door that looked straight out of Indiana Jones or Fallout. The guide pushed a button and this circular rust-colored door just slid open.
We walked into this cavernous copper cylinder with stairs spiraling all the way down and darkness aside from the blue and orange lights on the stairs. One of the guides was singing and his voice just bounced around off the walls. We reached another cool vault door at the bottom, and through that we entered the cave.
Vault 111, right?
There were large stalactites and stalagmites everywhere. We walked along a path for a bit until we reached an area where we were told to jump over the rope and head over to a little practice course. They had metal links and ropes set up not far off the ground, and we practiced clipping and unclipping ourselves before moving on to the high ropes.
The tour was really cool! We were very high above the floor of the cave. We started in some narrow passageways and climbed along the rock face, sometimes stopping and turning off our headlamps while the rafting tours glided by down on the river far below.
We also did two ziplines across open gaps between rock ledges, an abseil down to the cave floor at the halfway point where we stopped for a cookie and juice break, and a fun swing where we jumped off the rock and just swung back and forth over the drop. It was kind of exciting because sometimes they wouldn't even give you a warning as to what was going to happen. For the swing, they just clipped me in, told me not to kick off the rock on the opposite side, and sent me off before I even had time to figure out what was going on.
The only part I felt slightly apprehensive about was at the end when they bridged a couple of long gaps between rocks with steel ladders and had us walk across those! That was a little shaky. Finally, we crossed a little tightrope at the end before emerging back outdoors.
My confidence in these ladders is just radiating through the photo.
I was very happy with the tour and we were once again rewarded with bagels and soup! I had gotten to see the glowworms again, and it felt pretty badass to scale those cave walls.
I can easily recommend either tour, but if you can only do one, you should absolutely choose Abyss for the novelty factor and uniqueness. The rafting is a must! Waitomo is a must! DO NOT MISS WAITOMO!
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