Today, we headed to Waitomo to check out their famous underground glowworm caves. The drive wasn't too bad, about 1.5 hours. On our way there, we called the original blackwater rafting cave company that is supposed to be the most popular. Naturally, it was booked up for the day. So since we were already on our way, without doing any research, we picked another one - CaveWorld. They seemed to be "wide open" - hmm, that sounds like a red flag. In any event, we had no choice, we were already on our way.
We finally got there and started with a boat ride through the original Waitomo Glowworm Cave. It was your typical limestone cave with stalagmite and stalactite formations. They were pretty strict in that you couldn't touch anything, couldn't take pictures, and had to keep quiet when in the glowworm area of the cave. The glowworms were pretty cool. When you looked up, you saw thousands of little glowing blue lights. It was almost like looking at stars in the sky. The light is emitted from the larvae of the fly, the purpose of which is to attract bugs to the light. Once the bugs go near, they are stuck by these sticky webs spun by the larvae. What's strange is that once the larvae hatch, they become mouthless flies. They only live a few days before they die from starvation. Not exactly sure of the purpose of these flies in the balance of mother nature, but they're pretty in their larvae stage.
We then had a quick burger lunch at Curley's before heading over to CaveWorld to check in. It turned out that we were the only ones signed up for the 3:00pm tour. Our guide's name was Wini. We went with him in a beat-up van (whereas we saw the van for the other company, which was new and pretty) down the street to this shed where we picked up our wet
suit, hard hats, aqua shoes, and gum boots.He then drove us up the hill to this secluded area. At this point, Wini hadn't said much, just telling us to watch our head and what equipment we needed. We were not sure what we had signed up for and were a little nervous. In the middle of nowhere, we get out, and walked down a path to pick up our inner tubes, then took a long walk up another hill to the entrance of the cave. With inner tube in one arm, we made our way through the narrow cave. Just two of us and the quiet guide going into this pitch black hole in the ground. After a brief walk, we eventually hit water, where we had the inner tube around our waist and slowly went deeper into the cold water in the dark. We made our way by holding on to the person in front with Wini guiding us by following the wall. It was then time sit on the inner tube for a ride through a glowworm tunnel. But before doing that, Wini showed us how to get in. He stepped up on this edge and with inner tube on his butt, just fell back. It was dark so you could not see how far he was falling. It seemed like a 6 foot drop to the water when we finally tried it (although when we later saw the picture, it was more like 4 feet). We then turned off the lights on our hard hats, linked ourselves from arms to legs as Wini led us down the glowworm cave. We then realized that the glowworm cave tour that we took earlier was just a waste of money since we saw it here. We really could not see anything except for the glowworms. And here, we were allowed to touch the walls, take pictures, and talk as loud as we want. Apparently, when you make loud noises, the glowworms are supposed to glow brighter.
As we are
rafting in pitch blackness, Theresa asked Wini if there were ever any animals that go down into the cave. He said "sure, there can be crayfish...(OK, that's cool)...spiders (um, that's not cool)...rats (seriously NOT cool) and EELS (omg, Theresa freaked out now). Theresa really, really wished that she had not asked. Jokingly, we think, he said if something warm touches your butt that it wasn't his hand and that if that happened to make sure your butt cheeks are clenched when sitting, just in case. At this point, we kept our hands in our laps. (On the way out, we actually did see an eel in the water. Luckily it was at the end of the trip and not the beginning). The last thing we did was take an inner tube down a slide. Again, it was pretty dark and we could barely see how far it went. Pretty fun. Overall the innertube ride took about 1.5 hours. Now for the rough part, walking through the cave and up the steps to our van. We were all winded because of all the equipment we were wearing plus the water in our boots weighed us down. We were glad that we did this trip through CaveWorld because we got a private tour, could take as many pictures as we wanted, and we probably would not have as interesting of an adventure if we went with the other blackwater rafting trip which seemed a little more refined.We then returned to the shed where we returned the equipment. While we were showering, Wini made us chicken soup in a cup, which was great after being in the cold water. We sat around and chatted with him about New Zealand and his one trip to the US. He did a trip years ago to LA, Grand Canyon, and Vegas. It was funny that LA and Vegas were his impressions of the country. We then said goodbye to Wini and drove back to the Executive Motel in Taupo.
For dinner, we went to a nearby restaurant called the Chicken and Mole, which seemed like a local hangout and supposedly known for their lamb shanks and seafood chowder. We had both plus the pan-fried fresh catch of the day. All the dishes were really good. Every spoonful of the seafood chowder had a piece of seafood in it - mussels, scallops and fish.
We came home and Theresa busted out her carton of New Zealand strawberries. They were huge! Food here is great because it's all organic. You know it hasn't been doctored in any way. According to her, they were really tasty.
We went to bed early because we had some fishing to do at 6AM. All in all, a pretty good day.
For pictures of the day, go to: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=bigtandeze&target=ALBUM&id=5408890746103308545&authkey=Gv1sRgCLqKyqef1oOWoQE&feat=email
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