We arrived in Waitomo in time for a delicious lunch at Huhu, a place we heard about while soaking in a hot pool a few days earlier. We shared several dishes including a roasted cauliflower salad with humus and little risotto balls with tomato sauce and looked out over the hills from the balcony.
Thinking we needed to walk it off a little, we headed for the Ruakuri bushwalk which follows the Waitomo stream on boardwalks through the woods to see a natural tunnel. Joanna and I managed to lose Chris who had lingered taking a photo and wandered off a different way to us, but fortunately we were all safely reunited in time for our tour of Waitomo Caves.
Waitomo has a huge labyrinth of limestone caves that have been shaped by water over millions of years forming sinkholes, potholes, natural bridges and underground caves. The most interesting part for us was that with a river running through the caves, it is the perfect habitat for arachnocampa luminosa, a glowworm unique to New Zealand. However, it’s not a worm at all, but the matchstick sized larval stage of a fungus gnat, related to a mosquito, which builds a nest on the cave ceiling, lets down several lines coated with a sticky mucus and then emits a chemical light to attract it’s prey, which gets stuck and eaten.
The Maori had known of the caves, but once they showed an English surveyor through, the secret was out, and the caves quickly attracted a steady stream of visitors. Interestingly, 90% of the staff at the caves are descended from the original chief who revealed the caves. We started on foot, making our way down through the caves, admiring stalagmites and stalagmites and learning the history, then boarded a boat in darkness which took us round the glowworm grotto. It was like looking up to a starry sky, with all the tiny twinkling lights and definitely a very magical experience.
We spent the night in a tiny campsite just down the road and had a bit of a party to celebrate our trip together. Joanna gave me a scrapbook she had made with mementos of all the places we had visited which is a lovely souvenir.
Next stop, Auckland airport.
Off Travelling Together 