November 20 - Glowworms and hot sandy beach!

 Today we drove over an hour to Waitomo Glowworm Caves.

Exiting the caves; Mark chatting with Stephen

The route was twisty and turny and we could not imagine tour busses traveling on them, especially as these caves are famous. (In fact, we were lucky to get tickets as one of the days we are here, there were no tickets available.) When we got there, to our surprise there were a lot of tour busses. We cannot imagine the route they took as we never saw any.

    The glowworms are actually fly larvae; in a word, maggots, but that is not nearly as marketable. Caves were known to the local Maori who buried ancestors in cliffs, but the underground river was first explored and charted by a Maori chief and an Englishman. It opened to the public in the late 1800s.

     No photos are allowed in the caves as it harms the glowworms. Their luminescence attracts flies that come in with the river. The larvae drop filaments about 4-6 inches long and the flies run into them. Then, the victim is hauled up and eaten. 

   The cave system is owned by the descendants of the Maori chief. Our guide, Stephen, said he has dozens and dozens of first cousins. Most of the people who work there are related, which is quite cool. Stephen described being able to play in the caves when he was young.

You can see the filaments hanging down in this shot as we exited the cave

    One of the caverns is sometimes used for concerts as the acoustics are so good and they always have a Christmas Concert there. The Vienna Boys Choir, for example, has sung there.

    We ended up on a boat in the dark (and silent) and stared up at what is like a Milky Way, but of fly larvae.

     After that, we drove another hour and a half, again on really windy and hilly roads to  Kawhia Beach. We made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and ate by the side of the road.

    Kawhia is really off the beaten path, that's for sure. We drove through areas thick with huge ferns, as large as the trees. The green hills were dotted with sheep and cattle. We were a bit afraid when we saw the clouds rolling in as we drove there, but, when we got there, we had a nice sunny, warm (76?) day.

     When we got to Kawhia, we still had another 4 kilometers to drive which seemed long by then! 

      In order to have the hot water bubbling up on the beach, you have to arrive two hours before and after low tide, which we did. We changed into shorts (Mark), bathing suit (Barbara).

 

Kawhia is a wide and long black sand beach

  It was a pretty steep hike up the dunes and down to the beach which is wide and long. A few other people were digging with shovels into the wet black sand. Mark borrowed a shovel and dug a nice hole for us. It was not super hot, but definitely warm and

People digging holes

cozy.

 The people nearest us, though, had really hot water. We ate another peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the parking lot before we left and headed for home. We were out all day.

    We saw some spectacular new birds, though - European gold finch, European green finch and a masked lapwing - all gorgeous.

     Was it worth the drive to both of them? We're not sure. We don't usually visit "touristy" spots and Waitomo Glowworm Cave fits that description. On the other hand, these glowworms are found only in New Zealand. And, it was nice to know that the Maori own and manage it.

Waitomo as we exited the river

The only photo we could take of the "glowworms" which were actually pinpricks of light, not long like this indicates.

     The hot black sand was interesting, but maybe not worth such a long drive. But, the drive itself was beautiful, so..... I think we are glad that we did both of them. One thing we have noted - it is hard to get photos of the countryside as there are few places on the roads where you can pull over safely.