Waitomo Glowworm Caves

We left New Plymouth this morning and drove north up the coast and inland to the small town of Waitomo to see glowworms! The drive up the coast was very pretty with lots of rock pillars just off the shore. As we went inland we drove through rolling hills and farmland. Most of the roads in New Zealand are two lane (one lane each direction). The only roads we’ve seen larger than this were in Wellington. They also drive a lot slower here. 100 kilometers per hour is the max we’ve seen which is only 62 miles per hour.

We booked two cave tours in Waitomo. The first was of the Ruakuri Cave which is privately owned by a family. They spent $5M building a massive spiral walkway down into the cave and walkways throughout. Since it’s privately owned, we were able to take photos throughout, including some of the glowworms. Our guide was really funny and explained that the glowworms are actually maggots but they decided to call them worms for marketing purposes. We also learned that it takes thousands of years for the stalagmites and stalactites to form from the water dripping through the limestone. Our second tour was the Waitomo Glowworm Cave which is owned by the Maori tribes. Because these caves have spiritual and cultural significance to the local tribes we weren’t able to take photos but we heard the incredible acoustics in the cave when our guide sang us a Maori song and got to ride on a boat through the cave to see the glow worms. It was pretty magical! The river flows out of the cave so we rode the boat out the opening to end the tour and saw a fresh water eel.

We stopped for dinner in the small town of Taumarunui on our way to our next Airbnb and had, you guessed it, Indian food! Monsoon Indian Cuisine was the resturant and it was very good. We ended up driving in the dark for a bit and man are there bugs here! The front of the car was covered by the time we arrived at our Airbnb in Tūrangi! We arrived late but had to take a quick dip in the hot tub before bed to soak our tired legs before another big hike tomorrow.Leer más