Arachna campa luminoso

Asit in Getup

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I persuaded Amy to come to the caves.  She was not so inclined to become cold and wet.  So instead of exploring the natural limestone caves of Waitomo, she went horse-back riding.  I, myself, signed up for the Black Abyss, organized by the Black River Rafting Company. 

At 9:30 a.m., I began by putting on the wetsuit, wetsocks, white boots, harness and helmet.  It was not very styling if you can imagine.  We began by repelling down into the mouth of a cave, otherwise known as abseiling.  The walls close around you as you let the rope go.  At the bottom, they attached our harness to a zipline, and we flew into the darkness.  I spun around, and was completely scared that I would hit a wall.   They had however sent us into a dark cavern.  Then we each picked up a tube and had to jump with it into a dark pool about ten meters down.  The trick was to land with your bum ("kiwi for butt") in your tube.  Then we tubed down the caves in freezing water only to be amazed by the glowworms that sparkle like stars on the ceiling.  Otherwise known as arachna campa luminoso (not a Harry Potter spell), the glowworm, is actually  maggot larvae that lives on the ceilings of the caves of Waitomo.  They have threads that lower down towards the water, and they emit a light so that flying insects will think that they are flying into the night sky, and instead be trapped and eaten.  The glowworms are extremely efficient, and later turn into flies with no digestive system.  They quickly mate before dying, and hence the cycle begins again.  These worms make it appear as though the ceilings of the caves are a night sky full of stars.  Besides tubing, we crawled and climbed our way through the caves.  One of the guides pointed to a hole where an eel was hiding.  Don't worry I didn't put my head anywhere near it.  I've seen too many discovery channel shows to do that...