Cave Hike--total darkness, rushing river--heaps of adventure!

Here we are entering the cave for our 362 meter long hike through an absolutely pitch dark cave upstream through a river.  The only light that you see in the photos below is from our torches (flash lights and head lamps and our camera flashes).  When we turned the torches off, it was pitch black--you could not even see your hand in front of your face!!!

The river starts off pretty shallow--only about mid-calf high--but then it got deeper!! Tiare was on one of the girl's back because at the first part once you got a little bit in, it was pretty high. Even on a girl's back, the water went to just below Tiare's arm pits. The rest of the way wasn't that deep.

You will notice very clearly that I do NOT have a head lamp on, nor do I have my own torch.  This is very symbolic of my NZ goal of not being such a control freak, trusting in others, and just going with the flow!

Notice the watermark on the girl's grey shirt--up to about her chest.  Her name is Emily, and she is about my size.



The mist from the waterfalls was in the air--thus the spots on the photo above and below.  You can also see how narrow the cave was at certain points.


Sweet Natalie in the black shorts and jacket helped Tiare all the way through as Chris and I were a few hikers behind them.  She literally carried Tiare on her back in the deep parts.  It was very humbling to be far away from Tiare and not able to help her and to rely on someone else to do so--again relates to my goals for myself during this New Zealand stay!

Here I am following in dear Emily's footsteps--the blond girl in the purple jacket.  She had a headlight, and if I did not literally follow in her footsteps, I could not see where I was going as it was so dark.  Chris was behind me with his headlight too.  In this picture, you can see the reflections of our feet through the water if you look carefully.  I just kept saying to myself to just follow directly in Emily's footsteps one step at a time.  It really was a religious type of experience.  I couldn't help but think of following in Christ's footsteps and just doing the small acts of obedience one step at a time.

Here's our climb up the final waterfall.  The really steep part with the strong water flowing down is below the picture, but trust me it was really hard to climb up.

Here we are outside of the other end of the cave and river.  This hike really was one of the most exhilarating experiences ever!!  Here's a link to how to get there if you are ever in the Christchurch area--seriously, you have got to do it!!