December 12, 2011 at 5:00 pm

Picture of the Day: The Great Descent

by twistedsifter

 

THE GREAT DESCENT

 

caving spleunking long descent Picture of the Day: The Great Descent

Photograph by CHRIS MCLENNAN

 

Posted this weekend on Reddit, a TinEye search revealed the photographer to be Chris McLennan, a travel, adventure and tourism photographer (check out his site, his work is awesome!). This stunning shot was taken at the beautiful Waitomo Caves in New Zealand.

The Waitomo Caves are a village and cave system forming a major tourist attraction in the southern Waikato region of the North Island of New Zealand, 12 kilometres northwest of Te Kuiti. The community of Waitomo Caves itself is very small, though the village has many temporary service workers living there as well. The word Waitomo comes from the Maori language, wai meaning water and tomo meaning a doline or sinkhole; it can thus be translated to be water passing through a hole. These Caves are believed to be over two million years old. [Source]