Today was the day for the long awaited black water rafting trip. What the hell is black water rafting I hear you mumble. Well it’s basically floating around in tubes underground, hopping over rocks, jumping off the odd ledge and generally being cold. No rafts but plenty of water and definitely black (as in dark). We turned up at 9am where we were met by our guides Parker and Cowboy, seriously that’s what there names were. We were booked on to the 5 hour Black Abyss trip. This kicked off with a 37m vertical abseil into the cave system, through a tiny hole that opened out into a very large dark chamber. Now by tiny we mean just big enough to get through while dangling on a rope trying to control your descent. This was the bit that Ronnie most feared. Having taken full advantage of the practice facilities (a hill), Ronnie went first. As expected she was fine, found it all rather easy and immediately wanted to go again. Ed closely followed his wonderful fiancétte but enjoyed a slightly more painful start when he realised that his abseiling harness could have been better positioned. Any guys who have tried abseiling before will know exactly what we mean. We then spend a few hours trekking, floating and zip lining through the caves before climbing up out through a series of underground waterfalls. At one point we stopped for tea and flapjack, how quaint. The glow worms were really impressive it was like floating along gazing at the stars albeit blue ones. In actual fact the glow we were looking at the arse of a maggot which is actually part of the arachnid family due to it’s ability to make a web. After resurfacing it was time for our complementary lunch (soup and bagel) and off to the local cave museum.
The museum was possibly the best caving museum either of us had ever seen. There were old pictures, old things and even pictures of old things, all cave related. There was even a section on what they’d found in the caves (a bunch of bones and rocks). We weren’t there long.
Pizza at a place called Morepork. Now despite pork (or one of its many guises) featuring in nearly every menu option, Morepork is a type of bird not and not the anti-Jew eating establishment we first thought.
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