Camp Waitomo

Camp Waitomo was the best camp I have been on so far.

The highlight of my experience at Waitomo was the Huhunui cave. We had to wear a helmet with lights on it and we got to wear a big brown jumper like thing.

  Huhunui cave was a really fun cave because we got to climb up a mini waterfall. Before we started climbing up the waterfall I could feel and hear my heart beating because I was so nervous, but once we started climbing up that mini waterfall my nerves went away. I felt really adventurous almost like Bear Grylls but we were doing a lot more smaller and less scary stuff. Manraj was a little bit ahead of me on the waterfall but she would sometimes stop until I caught up to her. Something that was on my mind after the waterfall was that I could climb a waterfall without a harness and a rope but when I was doing abseiling with a harness and two ropes I was a lot more nervous!

 Once we finished climbing the waterfall we went into a little cave, and part way through that cave there was a small gap we had to go through, and then there was a slippery wall we had to climb up.

When we were walking through water in the cave I would force myself to not look up because I was scared I was going to see wetas and spiders. I would also make sure that I didn’t look down into the water because I was worried I was going to spot some eels. I hate eels because they remind me of snakes.

In one part of the cave we had to walk in complete darkness and we had to grab on to the persons shoulders who was in front of you. Manraj was in front of me and Baani was behind me. Baani kept dancing and moving me around which was making me a little bit nervous, then finally we got to turn on our head lights. To me the worst part of Huhunui cave was walking through the darkness with Baani dancing around behind me.

A little while after that we stopped about half way through the cave and sat on some rocks. We drank some nice hot raro and we got to eat some biscuits.

When we made it through the cave and reached the outside there was still some more walking to do. We had to walk through bush and a pond and then before we reached the van we drove to the cave in we had to walk on a muddy creek. We had to be careful where we were walking because if you took a wrong step you could fall into the mud.

Even though going through the cave, bush, pond and muddy creek made me crave a nice warm shower back at the camp, Huhunui cave is still the highlight of my experience at Waitomo.

By: Rhian