Sorry for the Group Email

By the time we reached the Waitomo caves we’d been experiencing weather that followed a strict day-on, day-off pattern. One day of blue skies, piercingly crisp air and sunshine, and another day of high winds, driving rain and acres of wet tent fabric.

People will tell you that the reason for going to Waitomo is to see the world-famous caves, populated by galaxies of luminescent blue glowworms, but the reality is that if you have half an hour you should really go to the Shearing Shed, which is two minutes’ up the road, is free, and gives you the chance to watch a German Angora rabbit have a shave.

The whole thing was hosted by a pair of middle-aged women, one of whom gave a blow by blow account via a rather unnecessary microphone and speaker assembly. We met Garth, an enormous Angora rabbit, who belatedly realised what was about to happen and scrabbled around frantically on the smooth shearing table, desperately trying to find enough grip to scoot free. It was too late, and before long he was stretched out on the table by four elasticated cables.

Angora rabbits, it was pointed out at length, die if they’re left unsheared during the summer, but there’s little more pitiful than watching a sad rabbit go from the size of a fluffy hatchback to that of a small dog. Still, you can always buy a sweater on the way out.

It was raining in Waitomo, but luckily the best reason to go there is to go underground. Waitomo has a world-famous collection of caves, populated by galaxies of luminescent blue glowworms. There are various ways to see the glowworms: you can ride an inner tube through an underground river, or you can go on a leisurely guided tour through caves the size of cathedrals.

Or you can don a bewildering assortment of jangling clips and ropes, take your life in your hands, and abseil down a narrow, vertical, hundred and fifty-foot abyss at night.

I nervously tightened the straps on my helmet under the gaze of Ros, our white-haired instructor.

“Anyone done this before?” he asked. “I have. Only once, but I watched the video three times.”

Ros reminded me of Dick Van Dyke.

Abseiling – and don’t let anyone tell you different – is terrifying. You put all of your faith and weight in a lap harness carefully designed to both show off and torture your crotch as much as possible, and a rope thinner than a permanent marker. Assuming you don’t chicken out, you’ll be in a seated position over a one hundred and fifty foot drop with nothing between you and a screaming death but careful stitching.

Before I knew it I was clipped to a rope and sitting on a precarious bar over the drop.

“Right,” said Ros. “Now ease yourself off the bar and hang off the rope.”

I had what I’m beginning to term a fifty per cent moment. This is a moment when things can go one of two ways: you can trust your equipment and instructor, or you can make a panicked and undignified exit, sprinting back the way you came to hide in your tent. I turned white (“More purple, actually,” Mendy helpfully said later) and slipped off the bar. If you can think of anything more unsettling than sitting in thin air over a rocky drop I’d like to hear it.

We had paid for two abseils: the second to be made with our helmet lights turned off.

“That way you’ll be able to see the glowworms better,” said Ros. “And you won’t be able to see all the mistakes I’m making when I hook you up.”

I think I may have peed a little at that one.

In the event, of course, like virtually everyone who goes abseiling, we didn’t die or break anything, and the glowworms were nothing short of extraordinary. Their incredible luminosity is basically a trap, luring insects in, but there were thousands of them in the caves, each a tiny, distant-looking dot of blue light. I can’t quite decide whether it was like being in space (celestial is a word most guide books use to describe the caves) or being underwater, but either way, peeing a little in a rented jumpsuit was a small price to pay.

Dave has regained control of his bladder.