2006/05 NZ trip - Waitomo caves |
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We left Tongariro and drove northwest through sheep farming country towards Auckland. The hills were sharp and angular, but pretty, coated with velvet in that strange shade of green. We stopped for a cuppa at a particularly beautiful spot, and were promptly met by the chickens in charge.
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Chooks & ostriches (1.47) |
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At the turnoff to Waitomo we met some giant chickens and realized we were at an ostrich farm. They were munching away in the field but interested in anyone who might throw some food their way.
Waitomo is very touristy: it offers spelunking, abseiling, “black water rafting” through the caves, spiritual experiences and musical performances in the caves, and just about anything to separate the tourists from their dollars. We’d come for the glowworms, which are the only real reason that Waitomo is famous. The limestone cave formations are nice, but nothing special; it’s the glowworms that are worth the trip. Our guide was the granddaughter of the Maori that had discovered the caves and first began bringing people in to see them. The government recognized a good thing and took the caves away from him years ago, but recent legal efforts have paid off and the family expects to get them back in another 12 years.
The glowworms spend their lives in the cave ceiling, feeding off the insects that come in with the river that flows through the caves. The insects see the lights of the glowworms and head up towards them. The glowworms have dropped a sticky string like a spider’s web; the bugs stick to the string and the glowworms reel in the string and have lunch.
Our guide switched the lights on so that we could see the strings hanging from the cave ceiling. Then we all took to a boat and she pulled us along under the 
ceiling. The glowworms glow a pale blue, and it’s like being in the midst of thousands of stars, or maybe one of the galactic scenes from Star Trek. Most of the tour is average tacky, but these few moments in the boat are pure magic, well worth the exorbitant price for a 45 minute tour.
The last and outmost cave in the path was inaccessible as the water level was too high after all that rain for us to get in there. Photography is banned in the inner caves, so the fuzzy pictures here are from postcards, but none of them comes close to capturing the feeling of being there.
After leaving the caves, I’d noticed a trail leading off from the car park and went to explore. It led up through the forest to an overlook of Waitomo, with a stile leading to an extremely muddy track across a couple of fields. I was out there in the mud trying to take pictures of fantails and a very fat New Zealand pigeon, when I heard 
this crash. When I went back down the track I found that a massive tree had just fallen across the track. OK, I’d much rather be climbing over the tree than climbing out from under the tree!
We were going to camp a little further north at Otorohanga, so we could visit the kiwi house there in the morning. On the way there we passed a sadly squashed hedgehog, a strange relic of Europe. The last hedgehog I’d seen was on the lawn outside the United Nations building in Vienna.
At the Otorohanga Holiday Park, we were treated to the landlady’s opinions on Maori rights to beaches and fishing quotas, stopping the Japanese from fishing out the abalone, and anything else we’d like to listen to.
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