Glowing Reception

We arrived at Waitomo Caves and booked into the camp site, which was opposite the Visitor centre, and went and booked the tour at Waitomo Caves. I(Joe) went on the internet and also booked a ticket to the Super 14 rugby game between the Waikato Chiefs and the Queensland Reds at Hamolton on Saturday. We chilled out for the rest of the day.

The next day we went for a run around the local rugby pitch, and relaxed some more, before going for a walk through forest and on Limestone to the Ruakuri Natural tunnel, a massive tunnel in the limestone carved out by water. We then went to the Waitomo caves for our tour. We went down into the cave system with a guide who talked us through the many formations down there. Then we took a boat ride on the underwater stream and saw our first glimpse of glow worms on the cave ceiling. It was a magnificent sight, thousands of biolumenescent purple glows from the little worms. We were also shown the many tiny silk threads that the glow worms let out to catch insects which they feed on.