Hamilton and Waitomo Glow Worm Caves
The AirBnb we stayed in had an amazing kitchen, fully stocked with foods and appliances, so I figured, why not try to make something a little fancier for breakfast. After the obligatory coffee, I hooked up the blender and made a batch of crepes. The fridge had apricot preserves, raspberry jam, and more, plus we'd been lugging around a brick of butter for a week, so we had plenty of variety for fillings, and everyone ate everything I put in front of them.
After breakfast, we had to hustle to get to our appointment to see the glow worm caves at 11 AM, an hour and a half away. We booked it and made it with some time to spare. The caves were on someone's land, leased to the tour company, so we had to take their van. We loaded our car seats into it and piled in with a few other people.
The drive was bumpy and through some hills. The caves were in Waitomo, which roughly translates as wai - water and tomo - hole. There are some 30+ caves in the area, many of which are worth visiting. Other tours include crazy things like rappelling, climbing, scuba diving, and river rafting through rapids in the dark. We obviously didn't sign up for those with a 1-year old, but we still were pretty excited.
The first cave was a "dry" cave, which meant that while there was plenty of water in it, and it had flooded so badly the day before that the tour had to be canceled, it was a footpath, not a river with a boat, so we could just walk in. The tour guide was pretty knowledgable about the area, the wildlife, the people, and the caves, so we hit him up with a bunch of questions, and he seemed to really like his job—seems likely since he was a 10-year veteran of the tour company.
The cave was full of limestone stalactites and stalagmites, a few flowstone structures, a few sinkholes, open to the air above, and we got to see our first few glow worms, living in some of the damper parts of the cave. They look like tiny pinpricks of soothing blue light. They spend 9 months as larvae with glowing butts, and they only need to eat one bug every 2 weeks to survive and become a horrible fly with no digestive system that lays a bunch of eggs and dies a few days later.
The structures were beautiful and fun to look at, but one of the highlights was a partial baby moa bird skeleton. They're so strange, and while this was a small one, it was still really cool to see and think that just 300 years ago, these massive birds still roamed wild, much taller than I am. We let Henry lead us out of the cave and he once again proved his mettle, loving every moment he got to walk. We have so many pictures of him on this trip just ecstatic that he's getting to walk by himself.
We headed out to a little camp spot to eat tea and cookies and get out of the rain. Charlie and Malcolm got some hot chocolate, and Henry got an extra biscuit (cookie). We put on miner's helmets and headed into the cave. The helmets seemed pointless for most of the group, but with all the stalactites hanging around, Eli was pretty sure I was going to need the helmet.
We boarded a boat with Malcolm and Charlie between us, Henry in his baby carrier with Eli, and launched into the dark. We started seeing glow worms almost immediately, but after 10 minutes of no lights, the ceiling teemed with them, and we could see even details by the light of the worms alone. It was amazing how much our vision adjusted, and how well we could see by what was really so little light. The count of glow worms in the cave we visited was somewhere in the 30-100k range, and it looked like there were more worms on the ceiling than stars in the sky. The water reflected their light, and other than a series of small waterfalls pouring out of the ceiling and onto Eli and poor sleeping Henry, it was extremely peaceful. Our tour group was silent and the rush of the water towards the nearby waterfall helped us orient ourselves.
We emerged from the cave a while later, still used to the dark, and I almost made it out without smashing my head on the ceiling. I took Henry, and I stood up faster than I should have, taking out a stalactite with my head. Sorry Mother Nature, I know it took you 30,000 years to make that thing. It only took me 37 years to come over and destroy it.
The tour was very long, and since we started at 11, none of us had had a proper lunch, so we stopped across the street at the Huhu cafe. We made lots of jokes about Frozen and Wandering Oaken's Big Summer Blowout, but the food was actually really good, and the people were super friendly. I'd love to go back someday, and recommend you go there if you're in Waitomo.
Tomorrow we hop on a plane to Christchurch where we'll rent an RV and start touring the South Island. Our flight takes off in the early afternoon, and we're about 90 minutes away, so we're packing tonight to ensure we can get an early start. It's going to be a busy morning, but I'm excited to do something new.