#5 Black Abyss Tour

The Black Abyss tour takes place in Waitomo, New Zealand and famous for glow worm caves. This is a 5 hour tour where you do a brief training on the repelling ropes before repelling 35 meters into a solid black cave. The tour continues by tramping through the dark cave to a flying fox (or zipline for my American friends). I have to say it was a bit spooky ziplining somewhere that I could not see the finish. Then you tramp on until you take a giant leap into freezing cave water on a small donut and immediately pull yourself upstream by a rope. Once you get to the end of the rope everyone attaches legs and the group floats together downstream under the light of only the glowworms. By the way, glowworms are essentially glowing maggots but I guess the marketing department did not think glowing maggots would get thousands of tourists each year. Odd…

There are lots of little breaks throughout the tour for snacks and hot chocolate (all included). The staff stops for plenty of photo opportunities along the way like a water slide and squeezing through the small parts of the cave. They do not allow any GoPro’s or cameras though so their pictures are not of the best quality. How I wish that I had my GoPro for repelling and flying fox.

Finally, I would say maybe the most challenging part of the tour though not heavily advertised. There are two waterfalls that you have the option to climb up. At this point you are in a full wet suit, helmet, frozen hands and boots filled with water. You have one guide at the top and one guide at the bottom pointing out which rocks to place your hands and feet with zero safety ropes. These are not large waterfalls but the water is powerful and slippery. Everyone made it out of the caves though and enjoyed a hot cup of soup. I would absolutely recommend this tour to anyone that is not afraid of heights, the dark or claustrophobic!