Winter 2019 - NZ6 Waitomo Glow-Worm Cave

NZ6   Waitomo Glow-Worm Cave

Advertising For Waitomo Caves

I had an unusual experience today; we had pre-booked this tour on line because we were told it is a very, very busy spot and the cave can only handle so many tourists per day. The visitor center, the parking, etc. sure gives it a touristy look and we were a bit surprised when, at check in, we were asked if we wanted an earlier tour. 

Cave Entrance

Well, yes, of course we would take the earlier time slot, the 2^nd of the day. We had booked for 10 AM but now our tour started at 9.30AM. It was a guided tour, the ushers and the guides were working for the cave system and there were strict rules.

 NO touching of the worms, NO photos and NO talking is allowed inside the cave. 

Some other rules, like no flashlights, no standing up in the boat etc. were almost self-explanatory but dealing with the general, international public it needed to be said. You’d be surprised at what people do when left on their own. There were a lot of Asian travelers among us and from my experience they seem to have their own rules when it comes to behavior. 

We had a limit of about 10 people on our tour; otherwise the group would have been too unwieldy. Yet there were many groups and guides and the whole of our tour was well choreographed. Each group was allowed a certain time span in different sections of the cave. I never felt rushed, never felt left out. It was a very good set up considering the number of tourists who wanted to see the glow-worms. 

Picture of Us Photo Shopped Into This Picture

The best part was our boat ride on an underground lake with our guide propelling, pulling us along, hand over hand, on ropes that were attached to the ceiling of the cave. No motor was used; we were just pulled along by those ropes by the guide. All we had to do is gape open-mouthed at the multitude of glowing worms all above and around us. The feeling was as if we visited a new universe, visited a new star system with new stars. All those stars were glimmering in the blue/green colors using their seductive lights. It was magical, something akin to an other-world experience. The sounds around us were just the very small ripples the boat made in the water. Nobody spoke, all were in awe. How alien this experience was. Here we are, the human race, watching little bugs eat each other in total darkness. Sucking the life juice out of misguided, lost moths for example, yet we, the humans gape in awe. This was eerie, disturbing yet fascinating.

Also Photo Shopped But It Shows the Hanging Sticky Snares

Actually, the name “worm” is a misnomer. This bug that glows is not a worm at all but more accurately a maggot of a specific fly that only lives in New Zealand. This maggot, during the pupae stage has the ability to glow and attracts its prey with the light it produces. Sticky string-like snares surrounding the bug catch the food it feeds on. This glow-worm is really a predator, living off what it catches during its special stage in life. The article below is a good article if you want to know the whole life cycle of a glow worm.

Exiting the Cave

On our tour through this rather large cave system we saw literally thousands of glow worms. The cave system was pitch black and dark, I could not see the hand in front of my face, and I tried it. Were it not for the boat, the ropes, the guides we would have been totally lost in this underground system of nooks, caves and waterways. The whole tour lasted about an hour gliding along the top of the water and we slowly, after some time, saw our exit approaching. Very subdued light filtered into this cave from the exit point. The transition from total darkness to daylight was slow. Our exit was a covered overhang on the outside of a mountain. We stepped off the small boat onto a ramp and our tour ended in a section of wild forest, NZ forest, with a path ambling up to the proper exit, to the reality we knew, the modern world all around us again. 

Making Our Way Back to the Entrance

Our past hour in this special ‘universe’ of the Cave seemed a bit outlandish, strange, primitive, delightful yet disturbing. For any moth or other small flying gnat or creature entering this cave, it is a trip towards death; certain death for those unlucky enough to be caught in this underworld. You will be snared up in a sticky mess of strings and then some alien being will suck the life juices right out of you.    

It was the twilight zone….   Eerie! 

I am glad I saw it…once!   

It really took me some time to shake off this darkness experience.

Leaving the Waitomo Glow-Worm Cave

 Carol wanted to see the shop inside the visitor’s center, I think she noticed that someone took some pictures of us during the tour; I guess she needs a souvenir from our Glow-Worm Cave experience. 

So around noon we were done with our cave visit and now had to drive back towards Auckland Airport. We have to return our rental car, and then get to the hotel in Parnell, a suburb of Auckland. We booked a room at the Quality Inn, one day ahead of the start of our motorcycle tour.

This motorcycle tour will now take over in my blog for the next 2 or so weeks.