Caving and Abseiling

Waitomo, about 2 hours south of Auckland, is known for its caves and there are a number of tour operators that offer black water tubing (tubing in a cave), abseiling (rappelling), and tours of the glow worm caves. We opted for a smaller tour operator, Green Glow Eco Adventures, that amazingly had a 100% excellent trip advisor rating and allowed a flexible itinerary. Turned out a be a great choice. We made it all the way through a local cave system and got the adrenaline going with abseiling over some 100 foot cliffs. Our guide Paul was a geologist that knew every detail about the caves and its inhabitants, kept us safe on the abseiling and was a cave photography master.

Against my better judgement, I will post some pictures of the abseiling. All I ask is that you take it easy on me when commenting on my outfit. Dana is fair game.

We were dropped into a lush green gorge that led into the entrance to the cave. Paul has a formula down on the photography inside the cave and set up a couple of fantastic shots.

Notice the first picture with the blue/green dots. Those are the famous glow worms that litter the ceilings of the caves. These are some amazing organisms that have been around for at least 80 million years. They only exist in caves in New Zealand, Australia, and South America and must have evolved before these landmasses split apart from Gondwanaland. In spite of the name, they are not actually a worm, but fly larva. They mimic stars in the darkness of the caves to attract insects emerging from the water in the cave. If all goes well for the glow worm, the insects get caught in a sticky vertical web that looks a lot like long beads of water. Here is what the worms look like up close (note the rest of the pictures are from Paul, who supplied us with a CD with some pictures he’s taken in the cave system):

Here is the Glowworm in the larvae state.

Glowworms then hatch into a fly. The key for them is to store up enough energy in their larvae state that they have time to reproduce. They only live three or four days as a fly.

The vertical web the glow worm uses to catch prey.

There were other animals that have made the cave system their home that we were able to see: eel, crayfish, small and large spiders, and weta. Paul has some great photos that give a good feel as to what the caves looked like: