Anyone raves about black water tubing in the caves with the glow worms?

We did this in Ruakuri Cave a few years ago, and it was a wonderful experience! You are given a wet suit, rubber boots, a hard hat (with electric lamp), and a large inner tube. You then hike a for a while (about 1 km, but somewhat awkward and hot in a wetsuit, carrying a large tube) uphill to the cave entrance. After a short walk , you encounter the underground river and start floating through. The water gets fairly rapid at times, and you have to get out to walk over some little shallow spots. You also have to jump off a little waterfall, landing backwards on your inner tube (if all goes well).

The last part of the cave has deeper, slower water, where we turned off our lights and quietly drifted in the darkness, watching the glow worms illuminate the ceiling into what looked like the star-studded night sky. Eventually, you emerge into daylight, and continue drifting until you approach the your original embarkation point.

They drive you back, where you take a hot shower, have some tea, then go on your way. I would definitely recommend this to just about everyone. It is not nearly as rugged a trip as other Waitomo adventures that require lots of spelunking or abseiling.

Hi ALF,
Thanks for your informative reply about the black water rafting. Do you recall if the tour group leader was the Black Water Rafting Co? Where is Ruakuri Cave? Is it near the Waitomo cave(s) and how did you get there from Auckland, I will presume. Did you rent a car and drive yourself or go with a tour bus with a bunch of other people . If you did go from Auckland on a tour bus, who did you use. I have located an intermediary company called New Zealand Travel House which offers a four hour cave rafting experience with RT from Auckland for NZ$159 pp or about $105 US pp. Looking forward to your reply.

We indeed did go with Blackwater Rafting Co., (http://www.waitomo.co.nz/); Ruakuri Cave is one of the larger caves in the Waitomo region. At the time, we owned a van that we used to drive through NZ for 6 months. While we were at the Blackwater Rafting headquarters, several tour buses from Auckland pulled up - it was my sense that various tour operators contract with Blackwater Rafting to take their clients. As such, I think that you will find it less expensive to rent a car and drive yourself over to Waitomo for a day or two. Blackwater Rafting charges NZ $75, while Waitomo Adventures (see below) charges NZ $85. Is it worth over NZ $80 to be driven from Auckland to Waitomo, and return? Not to me.

We have also used another company, Waitomo Adventures (http://www.waitomo.co.nz/) to go on a more adventurous Waitomo spelunking trip (Haggas Honking Holes), and we noticed that they also were busy offering blackwater rafting trips (Tumu Tumu Toobing). While on the aforementioned trip, we ran into their rafting group, and it appeared to be very similar to the Blackwater Rafting Co. experience.

Thanks again for your speedy reply Alf.
My final question relates to car rental. Considering that the tour bus cost is around NZ $80, how much would the car rental be. I'll bet it isn't much less than that for a day. We will only have the one day and we are averse to driving on the left side of the road. We live in California. Where do you live Alf? Your thoughts?

I live just up the road in Washington. If you don't want to drive on the left side of the road (definitely an acquired skill), then it makes sense to take a tour bus. As I indicated earlier, I think that there are only two tubing companies, so you will get the same experience whether you drive there yourself or take a tour. You can rent an economy car for NZ $50 or so, but it will be much closer to $80 when you figure in petrol, insurance, and taxes. If you only have one day, then probably taking a tour package would be a better choice.

As an aside, although it can be stressful to learn to drive on the 'other' side of the road, the most stressful driving experience I've had in a long time occurred in your state a few months ago, when we drove to Palm Springs on Route 10. I have never been anywhere else, where driving at 80+ mph made you feel terrified of being run over because you were by far the slowest vehicle on the highway!

I did the Tumu Tumu Toobing with Waitomo Adventures 2 years ago, and I agree with ALF, it was great fun. The only difference seems to be that we did not carry the inner tube for most of the walk - there were a couple of set points where the tubes were stored inside the cave and we grabbed them at that time to float, and at the end of that leg, we left them.

One thing I would advise, it to definitely wear a pair of socks inside the rubber boots. I did not, thinking it would be more comfortable since I was going to get wet - but the boots were not a great fit and I ended up rubbing a sore on my foot.

Most of the walk in the caves involved slogging through mid-calf high water and climbing over the rocks - the actual floating parts were brief by comparison.

The hike back to the van from the exit of the caves was a bit of a hike, though.

There is actually a third company that offers tubing in Waitomo. We were scheduled to do Tumu Tumu Toobing with Waitomo Adventures but when we checked-in they said the cave was flooded. They booked us on a trip with a company that I think was called Float Down Under since they use a different cave which was not flooded at the time. I don't think they have a website but they are listed in some guidebooks. Unlike some of the other trips mentioned it was much more of a float than climbing over rocks, etc.

I would highly recommend taking a glowworm/tubing trip. It's such a unique experience and I haven't heard of any place other than New Zealand that has these types of trips. It was one of the highlights of our trip.

Just my two cents about driving - we rented a car (as we were travelling the whole length of the country). Though it took a little time for my head to get wrapped around the idea of driving on the left, it quickly became second nature. There is very little traffic which helps. (I, too, am from California.) $80 seems expensive for a bus ride but it would be convienent in that you wouldn't have to go to the car rental place, check-in, look at maps & navigate, and return to the car rental place to drop off the car all for an overnight trip.

Thanks for your thoughts. The total cost in US dollars for this trip is $105 per person. The bus part RT is around $53 pp so I figure that, for two people, we would end up paying about $50 US dollars or so more for the privilege of taking the bus rather than renting a car. Any thoughts regaring tree top-airwalk out of Hobart Tasmania.