Karangahake Gorge & Black Water Rafting in Waitomo

Amy
Feb 14, 2019
2 min read

Updated: Jul 14, 2019

KARANGAHAKE GORGE & BLACK WATER RAFTING IN WAITOMO

13th February 2019

We had an early start from Hot Water Beach and drove first to the Karangahake Gorge further down the Coromandel Penninsula. In the gorge we saw some amazing mines that previously had been a working gold mine and went on a walk called the Windows Walkway. It essentially had a massive hole every so often where the miners would push out rocks that weren’t needed in the process of mining gold.

Afterwards we continued our journey down to Waitomo - famously known for its glow worm caves. This is where we did Black Water Rafting, one of the best experiences ever! Although it is called ‘rafting’ it is actually where everyone has their own rubber ring and is called Tubing. It was nerve wracking to begin with as we had to practice jumping backwards off of a platform with our rubber ring before we got in the caves but once we entered it was amazing.

We did a variety of climbing through small holes formed, followed the flow of water to some small waterfalls that we jumped backwards off of. The bigger one was a good few metres and jumping off meant you were also fully submerged in the freezing water - not ideal really but was SO much fun!

Further in the trip we reached the section with glowworms, so we made a chain, holding the feet behind us whilst floating on our rubber rings and drifted along the water looking at the glowing ceiling. It is hard to even describe just how beautiful they were. It was unreal...