glow worms,surfing, hells burger and cold weather

we woke up and drove straight to the break. a few guys were out so laurie decided it was time to get in the water. she has been itching for some surf. i decided to stay dry and take pictures.

The weather was horrible. freezing cold, windy, rainy; i found myself in the car with the heat on watching laurie surf. she surfed for about two hours and while i was warm in the car, i looked up and did not see her in the surf break. i started to get worried so i got out in the rain and started walking over to the sea. she was no where to be found.

finally she appeared walking over some rock cliffs. her foot gushing blood and a big smile on her face. she had that super stoked face going and had to start describing the waves to me . she cut her foot on the rocks when she went right on a wave and took it too far. her foot look like a meat lever had gotten to it.

we dried off and drove to bridal veil falls . it was now pouring rain and laurie could not wait to run down to the falls . i wanted to wait out the tidal wave of rain, but laurie was out running the path. i followed. the water fall was beautiful. since it had been raining all night , it was really gushing. so much so, that it scared laurie to be out on the plank looking over it.

we then decided to drive to waitamo. we arrived at around 3:3o pm and i was going to try on a suit for the next days tour. when i asked a guy how was the cave tour he replied we were about to go on it. i asked if we could join the group. they said to quickly go pay.

we put on our wet suits, and booties, they supplied. got in a van and were off . first stop was a platform to practice jumping off , simulating what we would be doing inthe cave. i went first. we were about 6 feet in the air. we put the tube on our butt and jumped backwards. water was ice cold.

we then got back in the van and drove to the cave. at the entrance you climb down a hole in the ground with water rushing around yourfeet. into the dark you go. we first climbed around limestone staglaglites, which looklike icicles . we then got in our tubes and floated in thedark. we then jumped off a waterfall in the dark. floating along we turned off our cave lights and youcould see the glow worms on the ceiling . really neat. we then jumped off some more waterfalls in the dark, saw more glow worms and went down some rapids. when we left the cave it was dark. the gal leading are tour had done a year at ucsb. what a small world.

we got back to the black river tubing headquarters and took warm showers. we then headed for our campsite. it was ice cold out.
what a good day. we got two things done in one day.