Waitomo Glowworm Caves

On Saturday we woke up early and headed to Waitomo to see the glowworm caves.  The drive was about two and a half hours with amazing landscape.  In New Zealand they don’t really believe in altering the landscape for roads so almost all of them are curvy and hilly.  On the way we also got to see a Maori burial sight, the Maori people bury their loved ones hills.

  

When we got to the caves we checked in and we went to the Ruakuri Cave. 

According to Maori legend, Ruakuri Cave (‘rua’ meaning den, and ‘kuri’ meaning dog) was first discovered 400-500 years ago by a young Maori hunting for birds. He was attacked by wild dogs just outside the original cave entrance and so he threw the birds he had caught and returned to the tribe empty handed.  We were told that when he returned to the tribe with no birds and explained what happened the Chief told them to kill the dogs and bring them back to him for supper.  So he did, the dogs were thought to be good luck so their chief and his worriers were buried in the cave entrance, and now that original entrance is tapu or sacred.

Because of this we entered though another entrance that was man made.  We walked down a huge spiral and at the bottom was a bolder of sandstone, with water dripping on it from high above.  This was to demonstrate the effect water has on sandstone and show how underwater rivers would have created the caves.  At the end of our journey though this cave we all washed our hands in this water as to leave all parts of the cave in the cave as well as to show respect for the Chief and warriors buried in the cave. 
 

Our tour guide though this cave was awesome.  She was full of knowledge and excited to talk about the caves.  We learned that glowworms are actually insect larvae that glow through bioluminescence.  These larvae are found all over New Zealand but nowhere else are there so many because all of the conditions are right.  We learned that the brightest glowworms are the hungriest and the attract other insects to eat with their light.  Once they turn into a fly they only have about three days to mate and lay eggs before they die of starvation because the fly doesn’t have a digestive tract.  

Then we went to the Aranui Cave.  It is named after Ruruku Aranui, the local Maori man who first discovered this previously hidden gem back in 1910.  Aranui Cave has a natural cave entrance and is the smallest and most delicate of Waitomo's three main caves. As a dry cave without a river running through it, it houses very little life past its entrance.    

 

         

The last cave we went to was the Waitomo Glowworm Cave; unfortunately we were not allowed to take any pictures in this cave.  But we got to walk though a bit and then we got into a small metal boat and floated down this river through the cave and up on the ceiling were thousands of glowworms.  It was so crazy they looked fake but they weren’t!  It was so cool!