After the bay of islands, we drove back down south. We headed towards Waitomo, which is the place where the glow worm caves are. We headed there in the evening, and it was another few hours of driving. By the time we got there, it was very late and dark. All the campsites in New Zealand seem to stop letting guests in around 8pm, some later, but it's best to get there early if you can. We couldn't go into the campsite, so we ended up finding a quiet parking spot just outside it and slept in the car for the night. I was nervous that someone would come along and tell us to move on, as you're not really suppose to park up randomly anywhere.

Luckily, it was fine, so in the morning, we got up early and had our breakfast . We slept surprisingly well in our sleeping bags in the car, it was cosy. It was raining this morning, so it would have been fairly miserable if we had slept in our tent in the rain. We left after breakfast, as we didn't want to get caught parked up here. Then we drove to the glow worm caves, which weren't far from where we stayed. It was still raining hard when we got to the caves, so we stayed in the car for a while to see if it stopped. It didn't, so we decided to make a run for it towards the entrance. 

We decided that we'd like to see some glow worms in the caves, so although it was over budged, we decided we'd like to do the day trip. Well a few hours actually, but still it would be worth it. It's one of the most popular tourist attractions in New Zealand so it's worth stopping if you are passing by. You can do cave rafting and stuff here, but that's very expensive, so we didn't bother with that. We booked to leave on a tour within half an hour, so we just sat in the waiting room to keep dry as it was still pouring down . Luckily the caves are underground, so we shouldn't get wet.  

Cathedral caves

Before we got taken into the darkness of the glow worm cave, we got taken into a big cathedral cave, which was pretty impressive. It's so named because noise echoes around it. Some people even tested their vocal chords out and sang for us! There were some very cool stalagmites and stalactites- I've never seen them before so it made them all the more interesting. Because the cave was underwater 30 million years ago, the cave is made from limestone composed of fossilized shells, skeletons and coral. This is why it looks like bones.

Glow worm caves

We waited our turn and the guide said follow me. We were with a group of around 20 people and we went down some stairs into this cave. Then when underground, we were taken into a little row boat. It was pretty dark down there and we weren't allowed torches or to use our cameras while down there. We looked up on the cave roof and there were the glow worms all lit up like little torches. They were shining a neon green colour and it looked pretty cool. Everywhere on the ceiling was glowing a magical green, i've never seen anything like it in my life before.

What are glow worms?

A glow worm is the larvae stage in the lifecycle of a two-winged insect . It grows as long as a matchstick and looks a bit like a maggot. There are many different types of glowworm. The one in New Zealand is arachnocampa luminosa. 'Arachno' means spider-like, which refers to the way glow worms catch flying insects like spiders do. 'Campa' means larva and 'luminosa' means light-producing. Glow worms can survive only in very damp, dark places where their light can be seen. They need a ceiling that is fairly much horizontal from which they can hang their sticky feeding lines, and a sheltered place where wind does not dry them out or tangle their lines.
 
Why do glow worms glow?

We glided through a tunnel, the guide just rowed us gently down the stream so to speak. Everyone had to be silent as any noises can cause the glow worms to stop glowing. We got told that the reason they glow. It's basically when insects go down into the dark cave, they see this glowing light, thinking it's their way out of the tunnel into daylight. However, it's the glow worm emitting theremones . As soon as the fly comes near the glow worm, it catches it and eats it, pretty clever.

The interesting thing about the glow worms is that they aren’t really glow worms. They’re fly larvae. And what glows? Well, that’s their waste. The larvae glow to attract prey into their threads by making the prey believe they’re outdoors, as the cave ceiling looks like a starry night. Hungry larvae glow brighter than ones that have just eaten. I though it's a pretty cool mechanism to catch prey though! The boat ride didn't last long, so no sooner we were down there, we were out of the tunnel and out of the cave.

After we left Waitomo, we drove to set of The Lord of the Rings movie; Hobbiton. It's not too far away and is kind of in the direction we're heading for. We stopped along the way for lunch, nothing exciting, just packet noodles. They're quick and easy to cook for a quick pit stop along the way. We found a nice spot with picnic benches and boiled up a pot of hot water. We found some really good noodles in the supermarket, we love Pak n Save, so stocked up on them for lunches. I'll probably be sick of them after a few days, but they do taste good for packet noodles.

Blog for Hobbiton on next blog entry