Romance in the waitomo caves

I decide to drive 150 km to the Waitomo Caves to try the Black Abyss. It's a five-hour adventure with abseiling, tubing, caving, glow worms and something called the flying fox. It sounds ace so I figure it's worth the 4 hour round trip.

Shin doesn't fancy it so I take Mugabe on my own. I get up at 6am to discover he's been blocked in by two cars and I have to pull some tight moves and drive along the pavement for a bit before I can get onto the road.

We're on our way. Only 150 KM to go. It's like driving through the set of Postman Pat - hills, bends, sheep and no other vehicles. I get to the place at 0830 and sign myself up. Get the wetsuit, cave boots, helmet and harness and am driven out to 'The Drop'. As the guy starts going on about the dangers I wonder why on earth I'm doing this. He straps me in, tells me sit down in my harness and just go for it. So I do.

It gets really narrow at first and I have to wriggle myself through, then it opens up and I zip down the 130 ft drop. Brilliant. When I get to the bottom, I sit down on a rock and stare up at the glow worms, then I turn my light on, move and realise I've parked my ass on a fossilised shell. There are loads of them, making all kinds of cool patterns in the rocks.

I get strapped onto some other wire and the guide switches my light off and lets me go. I go flying through the pitch dark at speed and end up right beside an underground river. The Glow worms cover the entire ceiling and it looks spectacular. Next we grab the tubes (rubber rings) and have to jump off the 20ft ledge into the river - oh, and somehow manages to land in the tube. Can't see how that's going to work, but I go for it anyway. I jump, hit the water, go straight under, then I surface and realise that it's totally freezing! But I am actually sitting in my tube - well done that woman!

Floating downstream, the guide tells us all about the glow worms. Basically, they are maggots and their beautiful green glow is caused by the action of excreting waste. So, much like everything else in life, a lot less romantic than it first seems. Still, they look really cool.

I spent the next two hours crawling over and between rocks, and under and up waterfalls - mostly in complete and utter darkness. I acquire a few more bruises, skint knuckles and raw palms. I realise this will only add to my comedy of errors tan, but I'm a woman of contrasts and extremes so it's probably fitting.

It was a totally brilliant experience and I loved every minute of it. Afterwards, a French lesbian tried to get me to give her a lift, but it was out of my way and i had a two hour drive back. Relief!

That evening, Shin and I went back to the Polynesian Spa for a dip. This time we went to the Adult & Priest Spa (Yeah, I've no idea about that Priest bit either). It was still full of noisy Japanese women, but it was nice looking at the moon whilst soaking your bones in the 40 degree water. Shin freaked out again in the changing rooms cause women were getting naked. I got naked too (I think it's quite natural to do that when you have a shower) but luckily Sinead had made a sharp exit otherwise she'd probably have refused to talk to me for the rest of the trip!