Glow Worms Galore

Another whirlwind of a journey and we found ourselves in Waitomo - a part of the country famous for its cave sites and glow-worms grottos. When we arrived here, it reminded us a lot of Milford Sounds, in the sense that there really is nothing here apart from the land around you and unless you filled your time up caving and exploring, you could only realistically stay here for one or two nights at the most. As it happened, we were here for one night, so as soon as we arrived at the YHA, we booked ourselves on the combo tour of Ruakuri Caves and Waitomo Glow worms Cave. The first tour gave a very indepth look into caving and how they are formed, discovered and developed. We also got a very thorough introduction to the world of the glow-worms....actually they are in their maggot stages when they are able to emit light from their bums (a result of emzyme and other chemical reactions giving out bio-luminescense - told you we learnt something!!!) and then turn into flys with no mouths. Weird huh!!!

The second tour was definately one for your average tourist, with well laid chambers and brief introductions to the world of caves and glow-worms, but still just as exciting and certainly just as memorable. Especially with the final part of the tour conducted on a boat in the pitch dark, where as you float down the river through the cave to one of the entrances; you look up and find that there is a blanket of green stars above your head as the cave is lit up with thousands of glow-worms. When you are there, it is quite a sight to take in; but again, due to flash photography disturbing the worms, we could not take any photos of this wonderful underworld! Sorry!

Waitomo Caves, New Zealand