Woke up super early today to go caving! Had a very simple breakfast – bread with ham and cheese, and drove over to Paul’s house 1km away. Almost couldn’t get our camper up the slope and paul had to use his car to tow our camper up! O.o hahaha
After getting to paul’s house, he passed us some clothes including long johns, shorts, a fleece jacket and a fleece vest, harness, and a helmet! So we changed into the stuff and soon we’re good to go (:
(note: photos taken by my point and shoot... didn't want to risk destroying jeremiah!)
Took paul’s car to his neighbours area and soon we were practicing our abseiling skills at some hill andden finally we headed down to our to our very first adventure! :D and omg the first one was a 30m abseil down a cliff to the caves! :D :D I was super excited but super scared actually! But of cos eventually we all get down (oh yes, darius’s virgin abseiling experience!) and then off we go trekking to the cave!
When we hit the cave it was like WHOA. Really everything I’ve learnt in geog! Stalactites and stalagmites and limestone caves and even oyster and clam fossils! :D but it’s really difficult to climb to be frank! All the rocks and cliffs and uneven surfaces and you seriously never know when you’ll slip and that’s the end of you. O.o but it was exciting and fun! Oh and the rocks were super rough too had a quite a few cuts at the end of it.
During lunch and tea we were eating our stuff in pitch dark blackness, with the only light coming out from glow worms! And I have to say, glow worms are really pretty!!! They look exactly like stars, just that they are green and there are so much more visible to the naked eye! :D and plus you can actually pick them! (but you don’t cos it’s ruining the environment). Haha. Anyway paul told us they apparently want to look like stars so that they can trick the mayflies into flying upwards while looking for partners to mate with and then they get stuck on those funny sticky strings they let go from their mouths.
Had two more abseils – one within the cave (this one’s really exciting cos its so dark below!) and another one outside the cave but into one, which is SUPER LONG, probably 50m? and every time you abseil down you get to see those super nice greenery or cavery haha omg. Total loves!
So anyway we stayed in the cave for like 6 hours, and soon we were back to the car, all happy and satisfied, and back to paul’s house to clean up! Oh he was nice enough to let us refill our water in the camper and so we bathed happily haha. It’s been quite some time since we were able to take a long bath lol.
So by the time we washed up, cleaned up the place a bit, and refilled the water, it was already almost 5 and so we started our drive towards Piha, our next location for canyoning tomorrow!
And even though the GPS wrote 3.5hours, we took a freaking 5 hours, through normal highways in NZ, a large Singaporean like highway at Auckland, through the street roads with many cars in Auckland, andden a crazily winding road to Piha. Goshhhhh. Poor herny was so stressed from all the driving! Especially at the last few km to Piha gosh. And the worst was that we didn’t know where our end point was, all we wanted to do is to get to the canyoning office and ask whether we could park somewhere. But in the end we couldn’t even find the place! Roarsssss. So we ended up driving and somehow we found this nice carpark by the beach and WHOA this is it. Haha, somehow we managed to get to the black sand beach I’ve read about!!! Wheeeee.
And omg super nice.
And so we had our simple dinner there, Korean noodles with minced meat and mushrooms, andden washed up a bit and went to sleep. Oh yes, darius and herny went to settle our toilet problem because it was so full so we couldn’t use it at all hoho. The guys can just shit outside but I can’t! haha so they were nice enough to solve the problem for me HEH. Slept super early at 11pm and yay! It’s a brand new morning! :D
After getting to paul’s house, he passed us some clothes including long johns, shorts, a fleece jacket and a fleece vest, harness, and a helmet! So we changed into the stuff and soon we’re good to go (:
(note: photos taken by my point and shoot... didn't want to risk destroying jeremiah!)
 |
| gearing up! |
 |
| darius looking all ready! |
Took paul’s car to his neighbours area and soon we were practicing our abseiling skills at some hill andden finally we headed down to our to our very first adventure! :D and omg the first one was a 30m abseil down a cliff to the caves! :D :D I was super excited but super scared actually! But of cos eventually we all get down (oh yes, darius’s virgin abseiling experience!) and then off we go trekking to the cave!
When we hit the cave it was like WHOA. Really everything I’ve learnt in geog! Stalactites and stalagmites and limestone caves and even oyster and clam fossils! :D but it’s really difficult to climb to be frank! All the rocks and cliffs and uneven surfaces and you seriously never know when you’ll slip and that’s the end of you. O.o but it was exciting and fun! Oh and the rocks were super rough too had a quite a few cuts at the end of it.
 |
| the very first abseil! |
 |
| exciting stuff. |
 |
| true blue caving. |
 |
| balancing act. |
 |
| some oyster fossils |
 |
| some more oyster fossils |
 |
| sometimes we go high, sometimes we go low |
 |
| freaking awesome colours. |
During lunch and tea we were eating our stuff in pitch dark blackness, with the only light coming out from glow worms! And I have to say, glow worms are really pretty!!! They look exactly like stars, just that they are green and there are so much more visible to the naked eye! :D and plus you can actually pick them! (but you don’t cos it’s ruining the environment). Haha. Anyway paul told us they apparently want to look like stars so that they can trick the mayflies into flying upwards while looking for partners to mate with and then they get stuck on those funny sticky strings they let go from their mouths.
Had two more abseils – one within the cave (this one’s really exciting cos its so dark below!) and another one outside the cave but into one, which is SUPER LONG, probably 50m? and every time you abseil down you get to see those super nice greenery or cavery haha omg. Total loves!
 |
| abseiling into nothingness! |
 |
| no, these are not stars. these are freaking GLOWWORMS. |
 |
| more awesome shots |
 |
| like true blue cavers |
 |
| taken using my point and shoot! the instructor is super awesome! |
So anyway we stayed in the cave for like 6 hours, and soon we were back to the car, all happy and satisfied, and back to paul’s house to clean up! Oh he was nice enough to let us refill our water in the camper and so we bathed happily haha. It’s been quite some time since we were able to take a long bath lol.
 |
| paul is THE MAN. |
So by the time we washed up, cleaned up the place a bit, and refilled the water, it was already almost 5 and so we started our drive towards Piha, our next location for canyoning tomorrow!
And even though the GPS wrote 3.5hours, we took a freaking 5 hours, through normal highways in NZ, a large Singaporean like highway at Auckland, through the street roads with many cars in Auckland, andden a crazily winding road to Piha. Goshhhhh. Poor herny was so stressed from all the driving! Especially at the last few km to Piha gosh. And the worst was that we didn’t know where our end point was, all we wanted to do is to get to the canyoning office and ask whether we could park somewhere. But in the end we couldn’t even find the place! Roarsssss. So we ended up driving and somehow we found this nice carpark by the beach and WHOA this is it. Haha, somehow we managed to get to the black sand beach I’ve read about!!! Wheeeee.
And omg super nice.
And so we had our simple dinner there, Korean noodles with minced meat and mushrooms, andden washed up a bit and went to sleep. Oh yes, darius and herny went to settle our toilet problem because it was so full so we couldn’t use it at all hoho. The guys can just shit outside but I can’t! haha so they were nice enough to solve the problem for me HEH. Slept super early at 11pm and yay! It’s a brand new morning! :D
 |
| korean noodles FTW! |
+ guaishou's! :D
No comments:
Post a Comment