Caving was great fun. We drove out into a cow pasture very close to where we’d walked the day before. The guide, Dave, pointed out spots surrounded by electric fencing. We’d seen some of that. Now we know why. There are sinkholes that open into the caves there. The fencing is to keep the cattle from falling in. We had thought yesterday some of the areas were to provide sanctuary for the geese and other fowl we saw. We picked out our inner tubes and then hiked to the opening. It just appears in the hillside. We went about 1 ¼ K through the cave we used for our adventure. We walked for awhile and looked at the formations and saw some glowworms up close so we’d know what they look like. It really looked like a piece of golden Christmas tinsel at the stage these were in. The very tail end of them is what lights up. The hungrier they are the more light they give off. There were a couple of places where we turned off our lights and were all hooked together. We put our feet on the innertube in front of us and we held on to that person’s boots. We had actually practiced this out in the pasture first. It sure made you feel a little more "connected" in the pitch black when we turned the lights out!! There were places in the cave where we had to drop a level of three to five feet. We did that by jumping on our innertubes. It was sometimes just like jumping off into the dark. It was a little scary. At one point the drop was more like eight feet onto our tubes. They placed a second one on the water below for us to aim at and if we hit it we would be more buoyant. I lost the boot on my bad foot there and never realized it until the next time we had to walk out of the water and up. We had booties on inside the boots. I couldn’t bend my ankle enough to pull on the boot in my size and they had given me a larger size for that foot. The young new guide retraced our path and found it!! I couldn’t believe that in that black water! The next drop was more like 15 feet and a slide had been put in there. We threw the tubes down before us and then slid. We had to hold our nose and hold our helmet on so we wouldn’t lose it when we hit the water. The helmets and lights go right under water with you. Dave had me lay down on the slide so I wouldn’t hit my foot as hard as I might sitting up. It did flatten me out but had more impact on my back. The water was pretty shallow right there. The river was a little down. The water was cool but the wet suit kept us plenty warm and I didn’t really notice it being cool but a couple of times.

We had to climb two real high sets of stairs coming out. It’s just like this huge crack in the earth just appeared and we were in daylight. It really was a phenomenal experience. The glowworms are all through the cave. In places the ceiling is way up high and in other areas it was low. We’d turn out our lights for awhile and look at the worms before we’d continue on. There are a number of different ways you can experience these caves. Each company has a couple of kinds of trips and they all use different caves. We chose not to do the trip that included 150 meters of abseiling (repelling). I could see in Andrew’s face that he thought that might remind me of my accident too much. When we got back to our starting location we took hot showers and they had hot soup and toast waiting. It was just after noon.