Wicked (Glow)worms

 We are now the proud drivers of a very 'wicked' camper van. With 'Motley Creu' emblazoned across the drivers side and crew of motley graffiti heads on the other side nobody is going to mess with us. But they might laugh at us. It's also quite pink. If you are reading this you should know that I don't like pink. But it is fun and will be easy to find in a car park, or a national park.

The company who owns this colourful fleet go by the name of Wicked and have a very funky brand with lots of wild colours, graffiti and right-on stickers... including a St. Padre Pio sticker tucked away in the corner of the windscreen! The protection of Irish Mammies is never very far away.

First stop was the tiny Waitomo. Hardly even a village, Waitomo is all about its limestone caves, all 250 of them, and the glow-worms that hang out in them. Despite only 10 percent of the caves being open to the public there is a mind-boggling array of ways to visit the caves. We rejected all kinds of combos deals for caving, tubing, kayaking, blackwater rafting, climbing, swimming and sailing and decided to abseil 150ft into a canyon at night to see the glowworms at their best.

Although I'm still chasing the thrill of adrenaline activities I'm increasingly feeling the fear (maybe that's age creeping up on me), but I am still doing it. I had no worries about hanging from a rope over a canyon in search of bugs when I booked it but once I was standing outside this small hut in the middle of a field, in the middle of nowhere, in the near dark, with a complete stranger rigging me up, I did start to think 'What am I doing here?' Then he told us we would only be using a single rope system. No safety rope. OMG.

I am so glad that I didn't back out because not only was this probably one of the safest activities I've done it was also the most spectacular. And we got to do it twice. The second time, (the ladder climb back up was more challenging than the abseil) we turned off our head-lamps and sat dangling in the pitch dark watching a galaxy of tiny lights twinkling all around us. Unfortunately, we have no photos of the glowworms, just the memory of this other-worldly experience. Nicola, however does have photos of us in our royal blue over-alls and red helmets, we just need to get the technology working so watch this space.

Given my growing adrenaline-related anxiety, I'm pretty sure this was as close as I will come to floating in space and it will stay with me for a very long time, photos or no photos.