Glowing underground, we're glowing underground….

Glowing underground, we’re glowing underground….
Waitomo Caves, New Zealand

Waitomo Caves, New Zealand

Having already driven through Waitomo once we decided to backtrack and revisit as heading down into the underworld of Middle Earth is pretty much an obligatory tour when in NZ.

We were based in Raglan which is an adorable little hippie town on the coast and after being advised that the Orcas occasionally head into the harbour hunting, I spent the vast majority of my time here just watching the ocean, hoping for a sighting of Blackfish, but alas the orcas were a no show.

So Waitomo is pretty much a massive tourist trap, there is one cave entrance which is hidden in the shadows of the masses of busses and group tourists all looking for a glow worm. Thankfully we had met some backpackers who were crazy enough to be following the Te Aroa Trail which a 3000km walk from Cape Reinga to Bluff, through the centre of New Zealand. Crazy if you ask me, but thankfully they advised us that if we were headed to Waitomo to take the Spellbound Tour, a little more expensive but smaller groups and much more enjoyable.

Taking their advice we set off early from Raglan and very nearly missed our tour as Tom Tom basically had no idea where we were and we had to rely on real map to get us there. Tom Tom has been the saviour of our marriage for so many years, but when he goes wrong, boy does he test us!!!

The spellbound tour is a cave and glow worm tour basically run on private land. A farmer one day heard the cries of one of his cows from underground and when we managed to find a way down he realised that his animals were grazing on land covering a mass of caves and a sinkhole had opened up and swallowed a cow. Sadly this story has a sad ending for the cow but a happy ending for the farmer who opened his land up to tourism and is now living a very happy life.

After a bumpy and windy drive to the caves we first headed into a larger and dryer cave which had been carved out by the eroded limestone in the ground, the cave was littered with skeletons of the aforementioned ill fated cow, some sheep, possum and even a now extinct Moa bird which had fallen and become trapped in the caves. Moa birds were once the equivalent of emus or ostriches roaming around NZ. Unfortunately the Maori had rather a taste for these birds and it is though that they were hunted to extinction. Funnily enough the Maori taste for birds continues as when you ask anyone what traditional food you can eat that is Maori, aside from a Hangi we were always told KFC!!!

After the dry cave, we moved to another entrance and were issued with hard hats and miners lamps to explore the wet cave and the home to the grow worms.

After a short walk and a chat in the dark to adjust our eyes it was just magnificent to see the glow worms light up the ceiling. No kidding it was just like a night sky filled with tiny blue twinkling stars.

The reality is that glow worms themselves are pretty ugly beings, as they are actually just in the larvae stage of life when they are glowing and they use their lights and strings of sap to attract their meals. Sometimes you will see a really bright glow worm with no lights around it, which is a sign of another of the glow worms less attractive tendencies, to eat their neighbours!

After stumbling through the cave in the dark we were loaded into an inflatable boat and we just floated through the cave looking at the twinkling ceiling, amazing.

Waitomo, Done, now time to head even further north.