Summary: Starlight, star bright, the first star I see tonight is actually a maggot with a bioluminescent booty.
Details
Another day up and at ’em nice and early. I was able to finally make the wifi work at the hostel and was therefore able to call my dad and chat with him. He is getting a little stir crazy I the hospital, but is taking a bit longer to stabilize than they’d hoped, which means his visit is being extended. I’m glad he’s feeling well enough to complain as that usually means he’s healing. After my quick chat with dad, I boarded the bus and we were off.
The early starts are getting the everyone. We’re all a bit bleary-eyed and slow at this point. Most people fall asleep, myself included, on the short one hour drive to Waitomo to see the glow worm caves. There were all these extreme options for seeing the caves via rappelling, which the kiwis call absailing, or black water rafting, but I chose to walk and slowly raft through the caves to really see the worms.
Norm was our leader to the caves. He explained that Wai=water and tomo=hole in Maori, so we were visiting caves or holes carved by water. The area is classic karst topography: uplifted seafloor made up of shells, corals, diatoms, etc. whose calcium carbonate (chalk) skeletons have been deposited over millions of years. Apparently, in some of the caves, you could actually make out the fossil shells of oysters and scallops. This wasn’t visible in the two caves I visited. You could however see the fault and uplift lines for the region both above and below ground.
We visited two caves that were actually separate entrances for the same cave system: the Mangawhitikau. Norm dropped us off at the top of a hill and we walked down a very pretty, pastoral hill filled with blooming windflowers, including exotic foxgloves and thistles, to the cave entrance. We had the option of driving down with Norm, but the scenery begged to be explored. There were several magpies (introduced from Australia) causing havoc with the local songbirds. A shadow passed over the ground, and the magpies scattered. I looked up to see a raptor circling the area. I later learned that it was a Harrier’s hawk, a very common bird of prey to New Zealand.
At the entrance to the cave, Norm fitted us with hard hats that had built in headlamps. We were at the mouth of the cave where the creek that had carved it flowed into the rock. The entrance we used was actually tucked into the side of the hill and covered with ferns and vines. Entering felt like you were sneaking into some secret world. The cave was beautiful; smooth stalagmites and stalagtights were neighbored by shimmering calcium carbonate crystals, and of which shimmered in their dewy sweaters.
We walked in about 30 meters and turned a corner where Norm asked us to turn off our headlamps. The darkness felt absolute. You couldn’t make out your hand in front of your face. The only thing visible were scattered pinpricks of blue-green light above us. We turned our headlamps back on and Norm pointed out the source of the light: the glow worms. He then went on to explain that they are actually maggots, the larval stage of a fungus fly, but that they’re called glow worms as no one wants to visit glow maggots. They create a bit of a mucous hammock on the ceiling and then drop tiny threads of mucous coated with a gooey, glue substance. The light they make attracts prey who get tangled in the delicate death traps. Like a spider, the worms then make their way to the entrapped morsels and suck them dry, leaving their empty husks behind.
We wandered a bit deeper into the cave and came to the end of the path at a raft launch spot. After Norm loaded us into the boat, he asked us go turn off our lights. At first, it seemed like there were thousands of glow worms around us. As our eyes adjusted to the dark and we slowly drifted down the stream in quiet contemplation, it became clear that there were millions of glow worms attached to any horizontal down-facing surface. It was like visiting a planetarium show – the twinkling lights were everywhere! If you watched an individual light, it became clear that they grew brighter and then would fade on some sort if cycle. I imagine it has to do with the rate of production and use of the light producing luciferin-luciferase enzymatic reaction. Whatever the case, it was magically stunning.
Photo from Spellbound, the company I went with.
By the time we returned to the dock, our eyes were fully acclimated to the dark and the caves features became so clear. We walked back towards the entrance with our lamps turned off and stopped at the same place we had at the top of the tour. The visibility difference was huge. Where once it had seemed that there were a handful of glow worms, now there were thousands. You could not only see your hands, but those of your neighbors, and the light at the cave entrance was the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. We headed to that light and back out into the now jarringly bright light of day.
At the entrance, we handed our helmets off to the next group and wandered up the hill for a bit of a tea break. New Zealand is a very civilized place and our tours seem to be very concerned with our caffeination status. Norm made a selection of coffees, teas, and cocoas for us to enjoy and warm ourselves up.
After our cuppa, we headed onto the second cave. The focus of this cave tour was more the geology of caves and cave formation. It turns out that an Irish couple in our group are experienced cavers, and, own a company that does caving equipment for television and movies. While they had not been there for it, they helped the BBC crew get equipment for their Planet Earth filming IN Waitomo Caves, and had been there and assisted with the filming of the Borneo Cave portion. The knowledge and stories they shared were really interesting.
The real highlight of this cave, though, was the moa skeleton. Mia are extinct giant birds similar to an ostrich or an emu. This one had probably died thousands of years ago. The whole thing was just really cool in the science geeky way that I love.
After touring the second cave, we headed back to Waitomo town center with its general store, tourist i-site, cave museum and brew company. I bought a pint of their witbier and took the time to write some more postcards. It was nice to have a breather for a moment before we headed back to the bus for our visit to the Maori marae.
A Maori marae is a meeting house that’s used for special events and gatherings. Our hosts for the evening Ruthie and Richie met us at a waterfall, which they were encouraging us to raft the next day, and lead a short walk to talk a bit about the traditional Maori medicinal plant usage and land use of the area we were in. We then hoped back on the bus for the short drive to the marae.
At the marae, Ruthie met us to tell us about the plan for the evening: a short traditional greeting ceremony, getting settled in for the evening, some song and dance, dinner, and some Maori legends to close up the evening. For the ceremony, the women entered first, but sat in the back. We were told that women go first for their sacredness for bearing children, but the men speak of behalf of the tribes (iwis) so we sit behind as we don’t speak. There was a short welcoming, blessing by Richie representing the iwi. Then Alberto, the oldest male with our group and an Italian gent, spoke on behalf of our group – he spoke so beautifully thanking the iwi for letting us have the experience that evening. Our group then sang a traditional Maori song as thanks before Ruthie and Richie told us a bit more about the history of the tribe and the region and the rules for the compound.
We grabbed our gear and settled into the house. We all slept communally in one big room on mattresses. We were given sheets to cover our mattresses and someone said we should tuck them in “as tight as a nun’s vagina,” which was wrong on so many levels but made me laugh very hard. Based on that scale, I think my sheet belonged in the red light district, as I just couldn’t get it tucked well at all. Ruthie then offered us up the use the marae’s kayaks and a bunch of us decided to kayak as the sun set after dinner.
We were then called together for the cultural performance. The songs were really lovely and melodic and the dances were fun. Richie explained that the guitar helped to save Maori music and today’s Maori songs a modern versions influenced and preserved via the guitar. The dancing was used to sharpen fighting skills and involved dexterity maneuvers with sticks and this thing called poi that look lovely, but are designed to strengthen the wrists for using short clubs in battle.
After demonstrating and performing for a bit, they then taught us a bit of language and dancing. We learned some basic terms for the body and some dance moves, which were then used to have us perform a modified hokey pokey, which got everyone up, dancing and interacting, something that hadn’t been happening as much as it could have earlier in the trip.
We were then split by sex for more dance lessons. The boys were taken and taught a haka, while the girls were taught a dance and song with the poi. We all then performed our pieces for one another, which was a hoot. After a song or two more, dinner was served.
Dinner was a lovely chicken dish, cooked in a modified keg that had been turned into a grill. This was served with potatoes, sweet potatoes, peas and topped with gravy. By the time dinner was done, the wind had picked up so much as to make kayaking a poor choice of activity. I planned to go early the next morning before we left and was told to be out on the water by 5am if I wanted to catch the sunrise.
No alcohol was allowed at the marae due to the high rates of alcohol abuse. But we still managed to have a great time socializing after dinner and played a fun card game. If you thought you got a match and you didn’t, the group made you perform feats of their choosing. Ours involved singing and doing calisthenics. One of the girls had no idea how to do push ups and instead did this herky-jerky break-dance-like move that had us all laughing so hard, I was afraid I was going to need to go for my inhaler. After a while, we realized that the bulk of the group had trickled away and went to see what was going on.
It turns out that Richie had been answering questions and was just about to begin traditional storytelling, so we all got ready for bed and dug in for some traditional Maori tales. I struggled to stay away due to the late hour and the full day, but the stories were worth the loss of shut eye.
One of the tales involved the wind guardian getting destroyed while attempting to achieve a particular task. As a result of his destruction, he makes sure he is felt and heard regularly to ensure he is not forgotten. Apparently he thought we’d all forgotten about him as the building shook in the wind at times during the night. It was a bit creepy.
I got up at 4:45 and went to see about kayaking, but it was still pitch black and frigidly cold with strong winds blowing. I curled back under the covers for a bit longer before getting ready for our next day.
TtotheT13 