Into The Caves

An early start had us inline at the ferry terminal at 7am on Easter Monday. At least the clocks going back the previous week meant that we weren't waiting in the dark. The ferry journey despite being early was well rewarded with good views of the Sound, Cook Straight, and were able to see Wellington this time around as the skies were clear.

By midday we were back on the North Island and soon making our way up through the blustery Route 1 around Palmerston North again. After an overnight stop in the shadows of Mt Ruapehu we took the scenic route up to the town of Te Khui.

Our next and final major destination in New Zealand was the Waitomo Caves. The Waitimo area and it's caves are famous for two things; limestone rock formations and glowworms. In fact the very small village of Waitimo has more caves (100+) than it does people (permanent population 45). We started with a two hour trip 65m below the surface into the dark. Here we made our way twisting and turning through the limestone caverns taking in all manor of stalactite and stalacmite formations that had been formed in limestone over hundreds and thousands of years. We were always on a solid walkway with hand railings, far removed from when we delved underground at the mines in Bolivia. This however is an important aspect of the tour as the rock formations although thousands of years old are always (very very slowly) forming and changing so human interference can be detrimental (and it comes with a big fine from the Department of Conservation).

A few times we were submerged into total darkness where a bit of touchy feely and some unrequainted closeness with your neighbour was required to find our way along. The reason for this was the glowworms. If presented with direct light they dim their own to preserve energy and won't be visible again for a few hours.

We were able to get nice and close to these intriguing creatures and see quite why they glow. From a small distance the sight of the gloworms is like looking up at a bright starry sky, however when you get up close you can see the perils. Not for us but the small insects that they prey on. The glowworms can grow up to the size of a matchstick and give off a small but bright glow at one end (imagine the striking end of a match) which lures the insects in the dark. Their prey thinking they see a light at the end of the tunnel head towards it in a bid for freedom but soon get caught in a sticky vertical web hanging from the cave roof. And then it's dinner time. The worm lives like that for nine months before cacooning and ultimately turning into a gnat which lives for just three days, (time to lay it's eggs, before dieing. Ultimately a strange life but an enlightening one all the same.


After the cave we headed for a short boat ride through a cavern filled with thousands of gloworms. It was a great experience to see the glow of all their lights clustered together like mini metropolises whilst cruising slowly and silently in the dark through the cavern.

We had one final nights sleep in Marv before needing to make our way back up to Auckland for our next flight. We had hoped to enjoy some of the sunshine and put our feet up for our last afternoon, but New Zealand had other ideas as the heavens opened it chucked it down that afternoon and right through the evening. Never mind there's always Fiji....