Mt Tasman & Mt Cook from Lake Matheson, New Zealand
Home  5finger.co.uk

New Zealand Tour

For just over two weeks at the beginning of July 2004, I took the time to travel around New Zealand with a friend, Sarah. We toured most of the South Island during our time, though commenced with a day or so on the North Island. Much of our trip comprised of absorbing the amazing scenery of the islands, often on walks of varying length. We also found time to try out a few other adventures along the way.

This page gives a pictorial account of the trip, together with accompanying notes.

After flying in with Singapore Airlines and meeting up at Auckland Airport, we collected our campervan from Cruise New Zealand and headed straight for Waitomo, about 180km to the south. Waitomo is famous for its limestone caves and adventurous pursuits therein. We had already booked onto the Black Abyss trip with The Legendary Black Water Rafting Company. Here we are all kitted up and ready to head underground with four Aussies for company. Click for a larger image
Click for a larger image The trip began with a 50m free abseil into the Ruakuri Cave. This is me leaving the take off platform ...
... and here's Sarah on her way down. Click for a larger image
Click for a larger image Once inside, we were quickly attached to this underground zip wire and released to fly away into the pitch dark.
Here we all are sat on a ledge above the flowing underground river taking a tea break before being given our underground 'rafts'. Click for a larger image
Click for a larger image In actual fact, the rafts are rubber rings! The way to embark on our trip downstream was to hold the ring on your backside and then jump from our resting ledge into the water some 3m below! If you look closely, you can just about see a demonstration of said technique - there is another intrepid rafter relaxing on the water below in the background having already taken the plunge.
Unfortunately, there are no more pictures of the rafting itself due to the little problem of keeping the camera dry. Suffice to say it was in the main a relaxing glide downstream with lights off to marvel at the amazing display of glowworms scattered across the cave roof like a star-filled sky. After leaving the river behind, we took to dry passageways for a crawl around ... Click for a larger image
Click for a larger image ... before dropping into another streamway this time not really suitable for rafting.
The step down into it was a little tricky though. Click for a larger image
Click for a larger image Having walked upstream a short way the going got steeper. There were a few waterfalls to negotiate and the only way to do so was to climb them, getting very wet in the process!
Sometimes it was possible to stay out of the water ... Click for a larger image
Click for a larger image ... other times not ...
... but we all made it up in the end. Click for a larger image
Click for a larger image We ended up emerging from the bowels of the earth up another cascade into a rather overcast and drizzly winter day.
And believe it or not, this is the hole we crawled out of! Click for a larger image
Click for a larger image Two happy cavers back in the outside world!
Next >>