Drive to Waitomo caves Saturday, December 28, 2013

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2013

BOTTOM LINE:

Drove from Hot Water Beach to Waitomo

Hiked the Karangahake Gorge to an old gold mine

Walking cave tour in Ruakuri to see glowworms and cave formations

BACK STORY:

We were up, checked out and on the road by 7:30am.  Our guide warned us that punctuality is necessary and he has no problem leaving people behind.  Everyone adhered to the rule.

One of the things that was brought back to my memory of visiting New Zealand in 2006 were the hedges used to separate land or to replace fencing.  I just love looking out at the green rolling hills to the sight.  My question is, “who the heck trims them?”

Mega hedges

  

Pasture Hedges

We drove up over the Kopu Range and made our first stop at the Karangahake Senic Reserve.  We all hopped out and headed across the first of two suspension bridges to make our first hike up the gorge along a river.  The area had been a large gold mining operation.  Airshafts were covered with grates for safety, but old cart tracks led us deep into one of the mining chambers.  We were told to bring flashlights with us.  Luckily I had packed our head lamps which were necessary.  Some of the tour companions had not packed any type of lights and we could hear them screaming ahead of us as others scared them in the dark!

Suspension Bridge

Karangahake Gorge

 

  

Bruce in his "man cave"

Gold Mine Ruins

Wild flowers and thistles spotted the pathway, adding color to the green hills watered by first summer rains.

daisy

 

  

Thistle

Foxglove

Suspending

Jumping back on the bus we headed through the town of Paeroa.  We were told that the famous L&P lemon drink was created in the town.  History says that a man had too many nips one Saturday night.  His hang over was quite heavy the next morning when he needed to go to church.  Along the way to church he came upon some spring water.  He took a couple of good gulps, which made him feel much better.  He later mixed the spring water with lemon and started selling the drink as L&P (lemon and spring water from Paeroa).  It is now bottled by Coca Cola.

Our next stop was into the Waitomo Region, which means in native Maori language, “water caves.”  There are a number of caves open for tours hidden below the countryside. The countryside and hidden caves reminded us both of an area in Kentucky that has caves. The calm grazing cows don’t even know what is underneath them.

 

Cows grazing over caves

There are many tour options…some short walking tours to see glowworms, cave formations and fossils to lengthy 5-hour water tube rides and slides deep in the darkness of the caves.

We chose to go on the glowworm walking tour.  Unfortunately with all of the morning tours the CO2 levels had risen to an unhealthy level.  The glowworm caves were closed until the levels dropped.

The booking office was very kind in getting us onto an alternative tour through the Ruakuri Cave with a group of Japanese guests.  This cave was discovered 400 years ago by a pack of dogs.  In the 1980’s a land dispute closed the caves until they were redeveloped for $4million and reopened in 2005. 

Halfway down a huge spiral staircase in the dark, Bruce informs me that he doesn’t particularly like caves.  Although I am very curious about caves, I do not like being in tight, dark places!  We were a team!

Spiral stairway leading down into caves

Dawned with headlamps we forged on down, down, down.  The guide opened a huge heavy iron door to a maze of lit tunnels and chambers that exposed the most beautiful and exquisite display of white stalactites and stalagmites.


 

Inside caves

  

Stalactites and stalacmites

As a child my Dad would love to take our family camping to the Pinnacles State Park south of San Jose.  He would escort us through caves and point out the unique formations hanging from the ceilings of the caves.  Years later on a hike, the caves had dried up and vandals had broken all of the beautiful formations off.  Our loss!

Although cool, I was sleeveless and the temperature felt perfect.  We could hear water falls behind rock walls and at one place the guide pointed for us to look over a railing.  In the dark we were able to see people on inner tubes traveling down a river in the dark with helmets and headlamps on.

Fossils in cave

The final chamber that we entered had glowworms lit all over the ceiling of the cave.  With a dim light the guide was able to illuminate the fine hanging web like tentacles that hung from the cave roof.  The light of the glowworms attracts anything flying around them in the cave. Once the unsuspecting insect flies into the spindles they become entangled and are quickly eaten by the glowworm.  We were told that one fly would feed a glowworm for two days.

A glowworm will turn into a fly but because they have not evolved a mouth, they quickly starve and die within a day…their sole purpose is to reproduce.

We were picked up and transported down the hill by the Chief Operations Officer for the developments company.  He told us that the earlier tour situation had cleared and he could offer us a free glowworm tour.  Our replacement tour exceeded our expectations and so we declined.

Our hostel for the night was a large private room with ample space and a private bathroom. Yeah!