Above
and Below: Exploring New Zealand’s Caves and Glaciers
By Dhara
Baiden
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September 2007
 My
husband, Steven, and I took a trip to New Zealand and loved every minute
of our month-long tour, especially the caves and glaciers.
On the north
island we visited Waitomo Caves and took an “adventure tour” through the
expansive cave systems. I was nervous...I think more scared of my
imagination (trolls!) than anything legitimate. We had been cave
exploring in Northern Ireland, which we loved, but the tour in NZ was a
little more intense; no handrails or gentle slopes to be found. In
fact, these caves involved jumping down waterfalls! We were 63 meters
(195 feet) below ground. They actually call it "black water rafting" because
for parts of the tour you are sitting in a black inner tube, floating down
pitch-black tunnels, which are only illuminated by the little baby light
on your helmet. There were nine people in our party (and funnily
enough one of the girls in the group was from a town 15 minutes from where
I grew up—I love how you go across the planet to meet people who are practically
your neighbors).
We began the tour by squeezing into
all kinds of interesting gear. A wetsuit, a long-sleeved jacket made
of wetsuit material to go over the wetsuit, a pair of basketball shorts
to protect the wetsuit from rocks when sliding down them on your rear-end,
a pair of wetsuit material socks, a pair of white rubber boots, and a helmet
(with light). I don't recall ever wearing a full-blown wetsuit before...imagine
a full body corset...I think I walked like a mummy for the first half-hour
until getting used to my new movement restrictions.
After getting
geared up we loaded into a van and drove to a river/stream where we had
to practice jumping off a pier, backwards, and landing butt-first in the
water in our inner tubes. This was to ensure we fine-tuned our inner-tube
jumping skills in the broad daylight before launching ourselves off dark
cave waterfalls. Steven was the first to do the jump (our instructor
said his execution was "textbook"...I was so proud), and I followed shortly
after, much less gracefully. The water was breath-stealingly cold...YIKES...little
did I know that the water in the cave was going to be MUCH colder.
A baptism of fire, no doubt; no wonder we had so much gear on!
We entered
the cave through what felt like a little crack...and the whole way through
we had water rushing over us...sometimes ankle deep, sometimes chest deep,
sometimes...well, we had to float in our tubes because it was too deep
to touch the bottom. We wove in and out of crevices and under stalactites;
it was marvelous. We also saw glowworms on the ceilings of the caves,
and we all turned off our headlamps and looked up; it was like a sky full
of stars. Interestingly enough, however, the worms themselves do
not glow, but rather their poop does. That made the glowworm portion
of the tour somewhat less romantic than it was initially.
Jumping off
the waterfalls was highly entertaining - they weren't too high, but high
enough to give us a significant endorphin rush on the way down. Upon
jumping, you simply trust your guide’s promise that you will indeed land,
because you certainly can’t see the bottom of the waterfall that you are
hurling yourself off of. After all, the cave is pitch black, and
the light on your headlamp is probably more suited to a child reading Harry
Potter under her covers after bedtime than for an underground expedition.
And you can’t chicken out, because the rest of the group is either ahead
of you, about to leave you behind (to the mercy of the trolls), or is behind
you, waiting somewhat impatiently for you to stop uttering prayers and
begin your plummet. Even with numb hands and feet it was quite a
thri
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The cave was so
peaceful and natural (not a Starbucks for miles and miles above you).
Although we were all excited and giddy going through the tunnels, there
was also something calming about being surrounded by such untainted beauty.
Oh, and no
trolls!
Then there
was our day at the Franz Josef glacier on the south island. Here
is my travelogue from that day:
The glacier
is HUGE!! We didn't really know what to expect, and although my knees and
every muscle in my legs are now sore, we really enjoyed it. We took
a tour with The Guiding Company so that we could have a professional guide
lead us onto the ice. We had to wear layers and we got boots and
“crampons” which were new to me – they are metal things with spikes on
the bottom to wear on your boots once you get on the ice to prevent you
from sliding.
A little glaciology
first: The Franz Josef Glacier is a remnant from the last ice age, and
it flows from the Southern Alps towards the sea. The catchment area
of the glacier is where about 90 feet of snow falls each year, where it
is packed down and then propelled through the Franz Josef valleys at about
15 feet a day at the top and 3 feet at the bottom.
Our tour group
boarded a bus and rode to the bottom of the glacier, and then we had to
climb a slope and over quite a few rocks to enter glacier from the side.
The ice is blue from the reflection of the sky, which is stunning.
And, as unintelligent as this sounds, it really is a huge ice chunk.
What surprised me is that many parts of it are covered in dirt because
the glacier is moving, and as it moves it collects rock and dirt from the
valley walls it is sliding against. At the bottom there are huge
portions of ice constantly falling off, which is a little unnerving.
After all, you’re dutifully following your guide towards this massive ice
beast and every few minutes you hear a giant piece of glacier crash to
the ground (and subsequently shatter). Also, since the glacier is
always moving, there are tunnels, holes, crevices, you name it, everywhere...so
we had to be very careful on our climb. There are guides on the ice
all day long using ice axes to "carve" stairs and appropriate walkways
for us novice climbers.
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