Waitomo Glow Worm Caves, New Zealand North Island

The name "Waitomo" comes from the Māori words wai, water and tomo, hole or shaft. 

I woke up that morning with excitement in my heart. We were going to see the glow worms! Funnily enough, most people would think of the glow worm caves as a side attraction. But this was the highlight of my NZ trip, the attraction that I wanted to visit the most! Little to know that this would definitely turn out to be the most momentous moment of our trip...

We drove for about 3 hours from Auckland to Waitomo Glowworm Caves. Reached at 11am. Gulped down a quick breakfast at a nearby cafe and assembled at the cave entrance, ready for our guided tour. 

The guide briefed us about the history of the cave, the geological formation of the cave, and also the biological creatures that were its inhabitants. After wandering through what seemed to me a very boring replica of the limestone caves in Ipoh, finally we got to see some glow worms! The guide shone her torchlight on them, I could not really make out the worms but they were hanging on glistening threads from the ceiling of the cave... the dripping wet glistening threads looked like saliva. 

Soon, the highlight of the caves - the boat ride through the underground cavern river in the Glowworm Grotto. The guide was a little apprehensive towards little children and warned the parents not to let the children make too much noise on the boat. But she needn't have worried. Hayley was such a very good girl!! She sat behind with my parents and was as quiet as a mouse, looking up at the glow worms on top of our heads and taking in all the interesting facts that the guide had to say! As for the experience, I would say that it is not as amazing as what we see in the promotional pictures. It wasn't like the entire ceiling of the cavern were covered with gazillions of glow worms, rather, it was more like patches here and there - but with one or two patches that were really quite big. It was just a very short boat ride, maybe 5-10 mins. There was a rope tied from one end to the other, and the guide stood on one end of the boat and heaved the boat while pulling on the rope.

Well that was all. A really short exploration and an expensive one too - considering the ticket for single cave cost like NZ50 per adult. Well at least I can tick one item off my bucket list for now!

 - Waitomo Glowworm Caves, 8 July 2017


Rolling hills all the way to Waitomo

Before and after entering the Waitomo Glow worm Cave 


At the Visitors' Centre
My little glow worm



Related links:
https://xweing.blogspot.com/2017/08/nz-trip.html

Comments

Popular Posts