caving
Is there a latent speleologist
inside you waiting to get out and explore the limestone
labyrinths of the underworld?
Caving opportunities abound in New Zealand, which has extensive
areas of karst limestone landscape. Serious caving enthusiasts
can stay in the Tomo Group Lodge at Waitomo and meet up with
members of the largest caving club in the country. In the Nelson
area caving clubs regularly run trips into the Takaka caving
systems, which are among the longest and deepest in the world.
Visitors who would like to taste caving adventure and view
wondrous sculptured limestone formations, subterranean streams
and waterfalls, prehistoric fossils and galaxies of glow-worms,
can join guided tours in many parts of the country. The
well-publicised ones in the North Island are Waipu (Northland),
Waikaretu (Auckland), Ahuriri (Hawkes Bay), and Waitomo. In
the South Island notable areas are Collingwood, Takaka and
Murchison (Nelson), and Karamea, Charleston and Greymouth (West
Coast).
The full-on adrenalin rush caving tours at Waitomo are ideal for
giving you a memorable hands-on experience of real caving using
professional equipment. There are numerous high Rambo
Rating excursions involving difficult cavern traverses,
tight rock squeezes, passageway crawls, rock chute slides and
waterfall abseils, replicating the best of pioneer cave
exploration. Similar tours on the West Coast involve 30 metre
descents on static abseil ropes and 30 metre hydro slides on
water-smoothed rock.
There is a wealth of subterranean adventure out there just
waiting for you and other brave, resourceful troglodytes. Just
sign up, don your helmet, wetsuit and rubber boots and drop in
for the time of your life.
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