Yeap...that was the question that was hitting my head over and over as I stepped into deeper side of the cave. Each step seemed to race to surprise me...big time! In the end, I found nothing, but GREAT FUN!! :)
This writing refers to my experience of joining the Blackwater rafting in Waitomo, North Island of New Zealand some years back - a true experience that was full of surprises.
When I first heard about "Blacwater rafting", I was thinking about a river that has different kind of color (black), something like the green color of a lake next to Mount Kelimutu in Flores, Nusa Tenggara. But I was totally wrong. The water has no relevance at all with the color, well ..not directly. Probably because it was located in the deep cave that has very limited access to sunshine. Probably.
I took the Black Labyrinth Tour which took me three hour of climbing, water tubing, leaping and floating through Ruakuri Cave. For me who never got any idea of what those are all about, the trip was like a journey of surprises. I could never guess what's coming next, and... what happened next managed to surprise me all the time!
I remember there was one moment when I was so hesitant to jump off into running water from (only) 1 meter high (and I had to do it backward - with the tube around my butt), the instructor shout "Come on, Astrid...you can do it, just jump and flow with the water!!". I counted to three in the long interval, while looking back to the water I was supposed to jump into... And I finally jumped! Surprisingly, it was really fun!
So over three hours, the ten of us took leaps of faith over cascading waterfalls and float serenely down an underground river. We got to enjoy the glow worm show on the vaulted limestone galleries up above.
We took couple of break, enjoyed some New Zealand chocolates (very nice one I must say) and catch some breath.
The journey concluded when we emerged into the sunlight of the Waitomo forest.
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