Well it as been a very eventful week….. Some of you will know bits and pieces so here is the full story. As some of you know Shane and I went for a weekend break last weekend. Now as it was our anniversary we decided to do something special. Little did I know what was in store.

Shane said he had a surprise for me, and me being me, tried to guess it and ended up finding out. We were going to abseil at the Waitomo Glow-worm Caves!!!! Now this thought terrified me, so after a week of getting nervous off we headed at lunch-time on Friday. We got there nice and early so checked into our accommodation. Then at 5 we headed down to Cave World, the guys who where we were going to take us abseiling. It was just the guide and us.

We got into the overalls and other gear and headed up to the cave. By this time I was really nervous!! Anyway, we did the safety talk and went down to the cave. To start off with you sit on a bar and this is then lowered so that you are just hanging there. By the time this happened I was pretty freaked…. The guide (Ross) was really nice about it and made me feel at ease. Anyway, I got better as I found out that I could lower myself at my own pace.

This first time was in semi darkness, and it was really amazing lowering yourself down with glow-worms all round you. Anyway by the time we reached the bottom, I was really enjoying it. The next thing we had to do was climb back out. This was achieved by a series of ladders and platforms. This was almost worse than the abseil down!!!!

Anyway by this stage it was raining (really heavily) and we were all muddy, wet and cold (or at least I was). So when we got to the top I was asked if I was ready to go down again. I said yes and then Shane mentioned that since I had guessed this surprise he had another small surprise for me when we got back up from the next trip down.

This time it was pitch black, and was even more amazing than the first time (and yes I was just as freaked at the begining). This time there were heaps more glow-worms, you looked up to the canopy above and you couldn’t tell whether it was canopy or glow-worms. Words can’t really describe the experience, all I can say is that you have to do it to fully appreciate what I am trying to describe.

Now back to the story…. We reached the bottom again and started up the ladders, this time with our lights off while we were climbing (we used the lights when doing the changes from one ladder the next). We reached the last platform before the top and the guide said that he was going to go ahead to pack the gear up. Shane then asked me to close my eyes so he could give me my surprise.

So there I was standing there with my eyes closed in a cave surrounded by glow-worms. When Shane said to up my eyes he was on one knee and had a beautiful sparkly ring in a box (he had even put an LED into the box so I could see the ring). After what I thought was a while, but Shane assures me was pretty instant, I said yes.

So we are now officially engaged…… and to those of you who are saying that its about time I would like to end on one of my favourite sayings….

“Good things take time!!!!”