Glowing worms, moa bones, and big mountains, oh my!

Sorry for the two posts today.  I don't always have access to Internet, so when I do, I have to pounce.

This morning we were out the door and on the road by 8:30.  Destination: Waitomo two hours southwest via a rather indirect route (many, if not most routes in NZ are of the indirect nature, thanks to the hilly landscape).

Waitomo is a small town.  It’s fitting, given that what draws people here is a very small thing.  Waitomo is blessed with a large network of caves, which in itself is rather interesting.  But it’s what you find on the roof of many of these caves which has tourists flocking there like moths to the flame – or like flies to the glow worm.

Glow worms are actually glow maggots (ew) that are hatched on the roof of wet, dark caves and cliffs.  They drape long sticky strands that trap unwitting insects that are drawn to the little greenish light the worms emit from their butts. 

It all sounds rather gross, but when you’re standing in a cave looking up at a ceiling covered in thousands of these critters, it’s something else.  It literally looks like someone took a long piece of thick black cardboard, punctured it with pinpricks, then backlit it with a dull green light.

Glowworms? or night's sky?  You decide (pssst...it's the former)

We had the lucky surprise of being the only people in our tour group, so we had our own private guide who drove us through hilly farmland to a cave and guided our raft through the very still water and explained the critters to us.

The entire tour group.

The tour also included some short walks through the idyllic countryside and a tour of dryer cave where we saw tons of stalagtites, stalagmites, rock pearls, flow rock, and tons of other very slow growing formations. 

Overhead you have stalagtites (cause they have to hang on tight).  Below, stalagmites (cause they might reach the top of the cave)

There were also the bones of various animals that had tragically fallen to their deaths through holes some 20-25m above, including a goat, a cow, and even a 200,000 year-old moa skeleton. Crazy.

Oh, and we saw a cave weta.

I think the most exciting thing I heard today was that recently Peter Jackson, the director of Lord of the Rings visited the caves in Waitomo.  Speculation is that he might have been scouting out the location for the cave scenes for The Hobbit. (Squee!) Now all we need is for this actors' dispute to be resolved so we can finally get this movie made.

It really would be aweful for this country if The Hobbit doesn't get filmed here.  It's tourism industry has blossomed since LOTR came out, and if it were to be filmed elsewhere, it could mean a huge loss for decades to come. 

We’re now in the small village of National Park which is in Tongariro National Park (they were really creative when naming the village, no?).  Basically we’re at the foot of four huge, active volcanoes, the highest which is nearly 2800m tall (Ruapehu), and another which had a starring role in Lord of the Rings as Mount Doom (Ngauruhoe). 

Beyold! Ruapehu!

It’s a popular spot for hiking (or tramping, as they call it here) and for skiing, which I was surprised to find out is still going on this late in the year.

Tomorrow the plan is to do a few shorter walks, then head in the general direction of Wellington.