– MARCH 01, 2015
Today we embarked on the Lost World epic tour! This includes a 100m (300ft) abseil (rappel) into an underground cave system. This tour includes a descent as the mist filtered light gives unreal qualities to the strange plants and formations. To start off we got into our gear and then made our way through the forest to the small walkways that lead to the abseil platform.
The walk to the abseiling starting point.
Once we had a long safety discussion with the two guides, we got loaded onto the ropes and started our descent.
The Hintze’s are hanging tough!
And our guide took our photo halfway down the abseil.
At about half way down (aka 150ft)
The second group looking down at our abseiling group.
Once we hit the ground it really looked like something out of a King Kong movie!
The Hintze’s reached the bottom!
See some amazing pictures below of the Lost World.
The Lost World
The Lost World
The Lost World
The Lost World
The Lost World
The Lost World
Once the guides got us to a certain point, they wanted us to pose for the silhouette shot. See our individual poses and our twosome pose below.
Kenneth in the “Al Bundy” Polk High pose.
Jill looking on in the distance like a seasoned explorer.
The Hintze’s in pose.
Deeper in the cave we saw a smaller area of glow worms, so the guide took a shot of us with our head lamps turned off and he flashed us with a light as the camera then snapped the shot below. Look for the glow worms in the upper left side of the photo.
The shot of the explorer team with the glow worms in the top left corner.
There was an extremely long ladder climb, but it didn’t photograph very well. After some more caving we emerged at the heart-shaped portal. A fitting end to the journey.
The end of the Lost World tour comes with love.
This concludes our experiences at Waitomo.
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For more photos of our adventure go to our flickr account here.
A Leaf on the Wind 
Love the All Bundy pose! Ha!
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