More Catlins and Glow Worms

We woke up to a lovely continental breakfast at the Retreat - toast, yogurt, fruit, cereal. Overall the stay here was excellent and we enjoyed the company of our host Robbie. We left about 9.20 and went to the Owaka museum which wasn't quite open, so decided to fill up with petrol at the garage opposite. This proved harder than expected, I had to pre pay for an amount at the correct pump on a separate machine and then go back to the pump which delivered exactly the $50 I had paid for.

In the museum we watched a film about the shipwreck of the Surat, which was where Surat Bay got its name from. No-one on board was killed and the Captain was found guilty of negligence. The rest of the museum had features on the early settlers, industry in the area, the war, religion and the ocean. It was small but all well laid out and interesting. Conscious of our tight schedule we drove on to Pakanhui Falls. A ten minute walk through the Forest took us to the Falls, which feature on many calendars and postcards and were very pretty and well worth the walk!

We then headed for the McClean Falls, following the road until w hit the Whistling Frog cafe, where we turned right up the falls road, but not before stopping for a great brunch at the cafe.

The walk to McClean Falls was longer at 29 minutes each way but still easy and pretty flat until the end part. Ed complained until we reached the end when the last part was a bit scrambly. Tash and Sam didn't attempt this (it was just a bit of a rockier path, no real scrambling). We got to the base of the falls, which were over a few levels. We climbed around on the rocks next tot he falls and took some good pictures that looked like we were standing in the stream itself.

We headed back to the car and decided we didn't have time for Curio Bay and wold press o to Invercargill to see the Tuatara that the folks in the cable car in Hong Kong had told us about. It was an hour and a half or so there and we found the museum. This is a breeding centre f ot the dinosaur lizards and had an impressive number that were out and about in their areas. The oldest was about 118, called Henry. There were lots of smaller younger ones and some rarer sub species. They have been around for 225 million years and only survived because they were isolated in New Zealand. We looked at some of teh rest of the museum quickly - posing with the motorbike used by the man who inspired the film "The World's Fastest Indian". We had a few photos sitting in it, not very elegantly ins my case! There was also an interesting section on the antarctic islands of New Zealand, where people had tried and generally failed to live in the harsh conditions.

Our short time here was up and we set off on the 2 hour drive to Te Anau. We arrived at the Cat's Whiskers at about 5.20. Sam and I had stayed here 13 years ago, though it had been sold on by the elderly lady who was running it then. Our family room was brand newly fitted out and we were the first people to stay in it. We had some quick food in Subway and headed to the Real Journeys office to board our boat. It left at 7 and took about 30 minutes to cross Lake Te Anau. We entered the caves, through a very low passage, about 1m tall. I struggled, but there was a handrail at a decent hight to slide along while I stooped down. The caves followed the path of an underground river which was very fast flowing and you could see how the power of it could carve out the cave system. We followed the passage up through an area called the Cathedral that was the highest cave - we were now about 35m underground. Next was an underground waterfall and whirlpool before we got to the point where we needed to be silent so as not to scare the worms.

We entered a boat and sat down, then all the lights were turned off and our guide, Meliissa, started moving the boat along. There were thousands of clow worms on the ceiling of the cave and we passed very close underneath big groups of them. The boat bumped along the sides and then was turned around and headed back. It was so dark that you could see nothing other than the glow of the worms - very eerie.

We retraced our steps back to the visitor centre, on the way having some glow worms hanging on the cave roof highlighted by torchlight - seeing the thin fishing rod strands they dangle down to entrap their prey. There was tea, coffee and hot chocolate. We also bought the photo pack that had been take n of us on the way into the caves (and also included some pictures inside the caves of the worms etc where we had not been allowed to take any shots). There was then a good short talk about glow worms, with a video showing an older worm eating a younger one that got too close to his patch (he had warned him by pushing him off the wall first). The eaten worm continued to glow inside the other one whilst it was digested. The worms take about 8 months to turn into pupa and then hatch into a fly that looks like a mosquito. They have no mouths and so survive on the energy from their larval worm phase, the males for a couple of days the females a little longer to lay their eggs. The first egg to hatch will typically eat all the others as its first meal.

We then got on the boat back to Te Anau and headed to the Cat's Whiskers.Read more