new zealand

Go caving they said... it will be fun they said....

We have been told that a South Island must do is caving through an underground street in Arthur's Pass. It is about 1 hour walking underground and the water is up to your waist at points. Today also happened to be the coldest day yet on our trip. All the mountains have a fresh coat of snow, all puddles are frozen, and the ground is covered in frost.

Andreas somehow convinced me that it is a perfect day for spelunking. We put on our head lamps, hiking shoes, warm jackets, shorts and set off. In the entrance to the giant cave, we immediately jumped into freezing water up to our stomachs. We walked for about 30 minutes in the underground glacier stream. Our lower limbs soon went numb. We saw some cool rock formations- no glow worms. My headlamp stopped working about 15 min in which made for some excitement. We decided to turn around after making it through some very fast rushing waterfalls(was a flash flood coming? Who knows)- we were also freezing and I was terrified. We made it out alive and our feet very painfully thawed out. We are now enjoying the powerful heater in the campervan. It is safe to say that glacial spelunking is 'not my thing' although I bet Andreas would give it another go.Read more