New Zealand offers charming seacoast villages, rugged mountain passes, forested tramping paths and some of the best sauvignon blancs in the world. You can get a hot, freshly carved leg of lamb sandwich with mustard pickle and a great new friend in nearly every small town. There’s bungee-jumping, sea-kayaking, swimming with the dolphins and snowboarding in August.
All of this is appealing, but if you want a uniquely New Zealand adventure, you’re going to have to dig deep. And I don’t mean finding your inner kiwi.
The hottest attraction for the growing number of adventure tourists who flock to New Zealand each year is blackwater rafting, a combination caving/tubing/nature tour that’s not for the faint of heart or the claustrophobic.
It’s available on both the north and south islands, with some locations more crowded, commercialized and expensive than others. But all include the essential ingredients of cold water, dark caverns and strange pre-insect creatures.
I confess, I was not the least bit sure about this.
The blackwater rafting spot we chose was near Greymouth, a gritty industrial town on the west coast of the south island. It straddles the Grey River at the spot where it empties into the Tasman Sea, and, between the old coal mines and the gloomy weather, gray says it all.
The day we arrived, the sky was gray, the sea was gray and my teeth were chattering from the chill, even though it was December – early summer.
We had reservations for our excursion at 8 the next morning. We were told to arrive in swimsuits and to bring towels. A shiver ran down my neck just thinking about it.
When we walked into the Wild West Adventures office, 12 other cavers were busily pulling on gear. We found the appropriate sizes of each of the following from bins scattered around the room: one pair polypro long underwear bottoms, one thick long-sleeved polypro top, one stocking cap, two pairs thick insulated socks, a full heavyweight wetsuit with jacket, one pair rubber gumboots and a helmet with headlamp.
Once we were fully outfitted and looking utterly ridiculous, we piled into an intimidating high-clearance bus with tires big enough to cross streams without even downshifting. Clearly, we were leaving what little civilization there was behind.
We traveled into the forest outside of town, parked amid wildflowers and ferns, and were instructed that the adventure would begin with an easy 30-minute hike. We tramped along a muddy, sloppy trail and along wooden walkways through a thick beech forest to our destination: the opening of Taniwha Cave.
Here our guides told us the story of the Maori people who believed that when you enter a cave, you must take some of the spirit of the outside world with you to protect you. I took a leaf from the forest and stuck it under the strap on my helmet. I figured I’d need all the help I could get.
Then we began maneuvering down into the cave along the stream, teetering on slippery rocks, clinging onto narrow ledges and sliding down steep spots, occasionally landing with a splat in stream pools along the way.
It was much more physically demanding and intricate than I expected, but the guides were excellent and soon we all were caught up in the challenge of crawling through the dark, dripping cave without doing too many belly-flops into the water.
I was enjoying this, and we hadn’t even come to the blackwater rafting part. I was entranced by the rock formations that looked like golden curtains rippling along the cave walls, and I loved the challenge of stepping, climbing and crawling through the passageways.
After about 40 minutes, we were squealingly comfortable in the subterranean environment, and the guides pointed to a stash of inner tubes piled on a ledge. We had arrived at the spot where the stream was wide and deep and moved around a corner through a large theater of the cave.
We plopped into the water, turned off our headlamps and leaned back for the show. Hundreds of glowworms formed bright constellations on the ceiling overhead.
Officially, the glowworms are the larvae of a kind of fungus gnat. They attach themselves to caves and dangle a filament that serves to catch insects. The insects are attracted by the luminescent glow of the larvae, get caught in the threads and are paralyzed, making them handy snack food.
To neophyte cavers, however, they are a natural light show not to be missed.
After our brief bit of rafting, we shared chocolate bars and cocoa (chocolate is one of the basic food groups for adventure travelers in New Zealand), and the serious caving ensued.
The passageway narrowed considerably. In places, we would climb up, wriggle through openings and scramble along on our hands and knees. At one point we went through the aptly named “rebirthing” hole, which required a head-first maneuver, one arm through, twist to squeeze the shoulders around and an ungainly plop on the ground on the other side.
Once born again, we came to the optional toothpaste-tube passageway considered too claustrophobia-inducing for most tourists. What the heck, I said, I’ve made it this far.
The instructions were explicit: lead with your arms; power yourself only with your fingers and your toes; and whatever you do, don’t pull your elbows underneath you. You’ll get stuck.
It took about five minutes to navigate, end to end, and culminated in a puzzling hole that required a whole lot of tugging and wiggling to negotiate. I don’t recommend this to everyone, but I’m proud to say I did it.
And if all this wasn’t Indiana Jones enough, the guides led us out of the cave and up the hill to a spot where the stream fanned out over a steep rock face into a natural water slide about 30 yards long with a big, deep pool at the bottom.
The guides gave us each a piece of foam rubber – and a no-nonsense reminder that the outfitter would not be liable for any injuries incurred should we choose to engage in this reckless mayhem – and then turned us loose. It was at least as goofy as it sounds and lots of fun.
But wait, there’s more.
When we returned to the Wild West office, we stripped off our many layers of insulation, took turns in the hot showers and then crawled into a hot tub. The guides turned up the music and brought beer, wine and muffins to the simmering cave people.
It was about 1:30 p.m. We’d had a wild, wild morning, and a good soak turned out to be the perfect way to celebrate the trip.
“Next time you come,” our guide said, “you should try helicopter rafting.”
“I can’t wait,” I said.
And I meant it.
Diane Carman is a columnist for The Denver Post.
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If you go
Greymouth is about a three-hour drive from Christchurch west over Arthur’s Pass.
Numerous small hotels, motels and backpacker accommodations are available throughout the town. Reservations aren’t necessary except during the holiday season.
To contact Wild West Adventures, go to www.newzealand-escape.com or www.nzholidayheaven.com.Reservations are recommended for the blackwater rafting tour. The cost is around $100 NZ per person, about $60 U.S.
