You gotta see this....our point of view video of the Canyon Swing!

So here is OUR gopro video of  the Canyon Swing we did in New Zealand (see previous post for the video we got from the Canyon Swing place). Every time I watch this, my stomach gets queasy. You can hear the guy say, 'Do you want a countdown, or do you want me to just pull it?". The words were barely out of our mouth before he dropped us 200 feet!

Canyon Swing!!

So here it is....The link to video of Helmut and Margarite conquering the Canyon Swing!

 The good part starts at about 2:00.

 After being dangled 357 feet above the Shotover River Canyon, we dropped 200 ft and fell 90 miles an hour in a freefall, then swung a total of 656 ft. It was terrifying!


It cost us $219 NZ each and if you're REALLY bold, you can go again for $45.

Here is an description from their website:

"This is an intense, undie staining, adrenaline stimulation activity achieved by launching yourself from the world’s highest cliff, 109m over the famous Shotover River.  Our uniquely designed system allows you to swing 200m with a 60m vertical freefall down a steep rocky cliff face.  Throw our amazing staff into the mix and you’ve got the experience of a lifetime."

 Helmut was wearing a Chesty gopro and we have that video somewhere, but we have yet to find it.
Tell us what you think, would YOU do it?

Caving and Black Water Rafting in Waitomo, New Zealand

Waitomo, New Zealand - We had been excited about experiencing the Waitomo Glow Worm Caves and black water rafting. We chose to do the Black Abyss tour with The Legendary Black Water Rafting Company which goes for five hours. This is the tour with all of the bells and whistles. We are glad we did this tour. 

You know you are going to have an adventure when before you start the tour, you don a 5mm wetsuit, a harness, a helmet with a head lamp and learn how to use the company's repelling system. 

They drove us to the mouth of the cave and took us through the paces on repelling because we were about to repel into the depths of the cave. 

I would say we repelled down the hour glass shaped shaft for 90' or so onto a platform. 

Safely there, we walked through a narrow corridor to our next challenge, a zipline. We ziplined through a narrow, pitch black corridor having to be careful not to hit the left side of the rock wall. Once we disconnected from the zipline, the guides had us lay on our backs so we could let our eyes adjust to the darkness. The ceiling was our only source of light once we turned off our headlamps because it was filled with the bioluminescence of the famous glow worms! 

 Look closely, see all those green dots? Glow worms!

Once we adjusted our eyes, we were issued a small innertube as this tiny tube was how we were going to be able to access the glow worm "theater" part of the cave. First things first, we had to launch ourselves off of a twelve foot high platform with the tube under us. 

Bam! Into the frigid water (8C/46F) we jumped. Man, that water is cold! Our next activity was to ride our inner tubes in this blackened cave to the glow worm room. The glow worms light up a greenish- blue hue on the celing. These fascinating creatures eat for months on bugs that fly into the cave via the river. The glow worms are attached to the ceiling and have sticky "fishing lines" that are 6"+/- long. The bug flys into the cave, gets disoriented and then flys to the light/it's death. The clever glow worm then is able to eat it's prey. Glow worms are all around the cave, but this was the grand ballroom for sure. 

After this, we ditched our tubes and the swimming began! We spent the few hours swimming from one cave room to another taking in the unique beauty.

 Sometimes we would walk or as the guides call it, the "drunken walk" as the submerged and uneven cave floor was like walking and being hammered.

 By this time we are 210' below the surface. Our guides informed us that in order to get out of this place, we had to climb up two waterfalls combined with trudging upstream. One fall while free climbing up one of these water falls could easily be fatal if you lost your footing or grip. Once we climbed the second waterfall, we were homefree and 50' from the cave opening. 

It was a trip because it was 9:00PM and dark outside. It took a minute to realize we were under the canopy of trees as we could see stars through the tree tops. 

If you go to New Zealand, we highly recommend the glow worm caves. We took the Black Abyss tour and are stoked we spent a few extra bucks to experience this.