Waitomo Caves

I'm on a blogging roll!

On Sunday we drove out to the Waitomo Glow Worm Caves. These were fantastic, I'm so glad we went. Jared is such a good sport, he had already been on his first trip to New Zealand but went again with me just so I could see them. We got there just in time to make the bus for the first tour, the Ruakuri Caves. It is a two-hour tour, and they let you take pictures, so here we go:

When you first enter the cave, you enter through a 15 m high spiral staircase. This man-made entrance is used because the natural entrance was used by the Maori people as a wahi tapu (burial ground) and it is a sacred place. 

Jared on the spiral staircase. 

The entrance to the cave.

The tour took us down about 60 m into the cave. There was a river flowing through it and you can actually go Black Water Rafting down it (if you aren't cheap like Jared and I). 

This was one of the best parts of the tour. There is a room at the end of the path called "The Pretties" and it is a whole bunch of- you guessed it- pretty formations. My picture is terrible so I stole one from the internet: 

Another very cool part of this tour was the glowworms which are only present in Australia and New Zealand. They are actually not worms but the larval stage of a fly aka maggots. These glow worms produce light through a chemical reaction in their hind end making it look like the stars to their prey which are other insects. The insects fly up towards the light and get caught in the stringy traps that work like spider webs. 

They then reel in their prey and suck all of the juices out of them. They are in this stage for 9 weeks and then build a cocoon. They emerge as a mosquito-looking fly that has no mouth who's only purpose is to reproduce. They live and mate for around 4 days, laying eggs in groups of 20. The first larvae that emerges eats the rest and the cycle starts again.

Their sticky lines on the cave roof.

The next tour was into the Waitomo Glowworm Cave. We weren't allowed to take pictures, so here is a shamelessly ripped-off picture:

If you can imagine it, it was like the starriest night ever, completely chocker-block full of glowworms. 

This is where we exited the cave, but it is also where the cave was entered in 1887 by a local Maori Chief Tane Tinorau and an English surveyor Fred Mace when they set out to explore the cave. All they had was a raft made of flax stems and candles to light their way. I'm not sure if I would be brave enough to do this. 

That's all for now, until next time!