I’d been looking forward to this day for a long time. Today, we’d be heading off to Waitomo, where we’d booked a five-hour caving experience. The area is famous for the many glow worms in its many caves. Unfortunately, Waitomo is 2 hours away from our place in Rotorua, and we had to check in by 8:30. This meant we had an early start, so by 6:30 AM Team Hubbard+ was on the road.

The drive passed quickly, and we soon arrived. We met our two wonderful guides, who took us down to the staging area to get our gear, including fleece shirts, wet suits (bibs, booties, and jackets), boots (with drain holes drilled in them), harnesses, and helmets.

It was a pretty day, but still below 50 degrees. All of the neoprene gear was wet and very cold. Fully kitted out, we hopped in a van and headed off to the cave entrance. There, we got some quick training on abseiling with the belay rigging attached to our harnesses. After some practice on a small hill, we headed off to the cave entrance. One by one we spun out over a yawning hole about 30 feet below us.

Using our hands to control the friction, we repelled down more than 110 feet through an hourglass-shaped shaft that was tight in the middle before opening into a large cavern.

At the bottom, we were shocked to find fossilized sea creatures, including a white sand dollar that stood out against the brown limestone. Once everyone was safely down, we hiked through a narrow tunnel to reach a zip line. We don’t have any photos of this part because we turned off our headlamps to zip through the cave in near-total darkness, with the only light coming from the scattering of bioluminescent glowworms above our heads.

Our next activity was extreme cave snacking. We took off harnesses, and sat on a ledge with our feet dangling over slow moving water, drinking hot chocolate and eating cookies. Truth be told, I think the goal was to give us a little fuel and fire in our bellies before we jumped into the frigid water with our inner tubes.

Once we were all afloat, we started heading upstream. This water was seriously cold. We were far underground, and it’s winter in New Zealand. To generate heat, we ran through sandy shallows up to our waists. When the water was too deep, we switched to sitting in our tubes and pulling ourselves along by robes anchored to the walls. When there weren’t ropes, we paddled with our hands.

Along we way, we saw various rock formations formed by eons of mineral rich water dripping through small cracks. We stopped at one spot for a long-exposure photograph below a doll-sized feature affectionately called “Gandalf” by the local cavers. ‘Cause everything in NZ has to be related to LOTR one way or another. It’s on the wall above our heads. Just taking the picture was a bit of an ordeal, lasting about five minutes. While we sat in darkness, our guide ran through the water with his headlamp under water, producing the image below.

We then switched our headlamps to shine red light so that our eyes would better adjust to the darkness. In special forces mode, we continued upstream. We took breaks to do exercises to ward off the cold. Eventually, the stream got deeper and we had to paddle, this time linked together head-to-foot. Along the way, we passed through a waterfall from a huge shaft above us. Eventually, we reached the end, where the water ducked under the rock without leaving space for mouth-breathers like us. We stopped paddling and let the current take hold. As we floated back down the long tunnel, we looked up at the thousands of glow worms on the ceiling above us. We couldn’t get photos on the low light, but this is what they look like:

The worms are not really worms. They are grubs—the larval stage of flies. The grubs dangle sticky silk down from the ceiling to catch bugs, which the grubs then eat. Eventually, the grubs get enough snacks to change into flies, which then mate to produce more grubs.

Shortly after passing the spot where we jumped in, we encountered a bit of a dam, which we bypassed with a short water slide.

From here onward, the water flowed quickly. No more inner tubes for us. The rest of our time underground would be hiking, climbing, and swimming through water that was, you guessed it, still cold. But the setting was incredible. Sure, I couldn’t feel my toes, but I also couldn’t have been more excited.

Some of the spots we passed through were very tight, requiring us to “noodle” our way through, i.e., act like a cooked spaghetti noodle.

Indeed, in this photo Lydie is lying on her belly. In a couple of spots, we also had to climb through steep vertical tunnels while fighting our way up waterfalls thundering so loudly that we could barely hear instructions and warnings from our guides.

Don’t let Cassie’s calm face fool you. This was a crazy waterfall to climb. I would never have even considered it had our guides not been there. If we’d slipped, we would have fallen on rocks while also being washed into crevices and perhaps pinned underwater. But it was also super fun. And Cassie might be a little crazy.

We continued to climb upward through tight passage ways with surprisingly sharp rocks all around us.

After quite a bit of hiking, noodling, and climbing, we emerged into a small forest filled with tree ferns.

We piled back in the van, headed back, got showered, and could finally feel our toes again.

We thanked our guide, Cali. She didn’t say it out loud, but I could tell from her expression that we were the coolest group to come through in years. Probably. We drove back to Rotorua rehashing and reliving our adventure.

We finished the night in the hot tub at our AirBNB, looking up at the Milky Way, the Southern Cross, and Maui’s Hook, with a smattering of shooting stars to add some drama. Between the day’s adventure, the hot tub, and the wine, we were all warm and happy.

-Will