Waitomo Caves

15th December 

Did a walk along the river to Arapuni. There's a power station there & a swing bridge.

During the Second World War they camouflaged the power station so it wouldn't get targeted by the Janpenese, by painting it & covering it with foliage. 

At Arapuni there was a café i was going to visit, but it was closed so I ate my sarnies & walked back. 

I moved on towards the caves & saw a campsite sign-posted at Otorohanga. It was a holiday park but not too expensive - $38 so roughly £16 - worth it to relax & have the facilities. Reckon it would be £38 at home!

Cooked a vege chilli. There was a fully equipped kitchen to use but it was nice cooking outside. 

16th December 

I'd booked the caves online - first slot I could get was 11.20am.

(Just before I parked up a weasel or stoat ran across the road in front of me with a rat, almost as big as him/herself in its mouth. Awesome!)

They were beautiful limestone caves with stalagmites & stalactites. Apparently a stalagmite can take 300 years just to grow 1cm. We weren't allowed to take pictures in the caves but each layer (around 10 - 15 cm) in the wall of the cave took 10,000 years to form.....the caves were around 30 million years old.

The first explorers to the caves in 1887 entered them on a raft made from sticks & leaves & spent 2 years studying them. 

https://www.waitomo.com/discover/magic/the-history-of-waitomo-glowworm-cave

Before that they were a sacred place to the Maori people. The area of Waitomo is a special spiritual place. 

Like the Aborigines in Australia the Maori feel deeply connected to the land & their birthplace. 

Unlike the Aborigines, who burn their dead, it is important to the Maori to be buried in the place they were born. They also bury the placenta in that birthplace.

I get the sense that the Maori culture has survived better......I am keen to discover more.

We had a boat - a bit more substantial than the first explorers - which we entered in the dark as the main 'attraction' inside the caves was the glow worms.  

There were hundreds of them hanging from the ceiling, like stars. It was magical,  floating in the dark, through the cave.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glowworm

The NZ Glowworm:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arachnocampa_luminosa

At the exit/entrance to the cave he let us take a photo - but it's not great with my phone. They glowca greenish blue, which looks more blue through the camera than to the eye.

The walk to the lookout was very nice and the scent of the honeysuckle was so sweet.

I saw a sign for Otorohanga Kiwi house. Here they had Kiwi - such strange flightless birds, unique to New Zealand 

I kind of wandered in & managed somehow not to pay.

They had Kiwi, which are nocturnal and almost impossible to see wild, in a large 'dark room' where you can see them but they were really hard to spot!

Once my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could occasionally see a bit of movement & a beak. 

I'm another dark house I was waiting behind a family that were quite noisy - and were pointing to a Kiwi in the corner. I saw him shuffle along - they are bigger than you think! The size of a small cat. 

They are basically a bird that partly evolved to a mammal with thick fur instead of feathers & little whiskers. They have small wings with a claw. They lay the biggest eggs in comparison to their size (about the same size as an Emu!) That's like us giving birth to a 5 year old.

After the family left, the Kiwi came out of the corner & into a pond where he had a drink. It was so exciting to see!

The aviary there had some rare protected birds indigenous to NZ. Some of them had been rescued etc. It was sad to see them there but, they do try to release them to the wild if they can. 

This is a New Zealand kingfisher 

As I was tired I headed back to the 'Little Waipa Reserve' for the night. I got there at around 5pm & it rained through 'till 8pm.

I heated up my leftover chilli & read my book.