Into the bowels of the EARTH!

After a much better sleep, we arose to the sound of active tui birds, flying everywhere, darting, fighting, and singing loudly. We brushed the tent off and headed to the first of today's adventures. After getting lost trying to find which tour agency was the one we booked, we settled into some lunch at a cafe while we waited for our tour to begin. Something both Tom and I learned quickly is that in New Zealand, a milk shake means just that, frothed up milk. Even a "thick" shake is hardly thick. When our tour bus pulled up to take the 15 odd people on the tour, we were greeted by our charismatic tour guide, Zane. This wonderful man had clearly been doing this job, and caving in general for a long time, and his puns and quirky nature made this trip one that will be hard to forget. We zoomed in our bus from the cafe to the cave area, which was one of many entrances that riddled the Waitomo area. For most of the time, I left the flash off and used what little light was provided by the interior lights and a few torches among the group. The beginning stated with a great stairwell that I will show you at the end, winding down the sides of the first part of the chasm. We went through a door leading into a long cylindrical tunnel with another door at the other end to maintain the environment of the cave. Images of the decreasing hallway from Charlie and the Chocolate factory came to mind while Zane, engaging the younger audience, waited for a magic word that would open the door. Now we were truly in the cave, with concrete giving way to limestone carved out by volcanic action and to a greater degree, water. The entire cave owes it's creation mostly to water, including the geologic formations that Zane explained so well. The dissolution of limestone to later be re-crystallized within the cave passages into such beautiful formations as cave coral, flowstone, veilstones, stalagmites, stalactites, and columns. Zane put in simple terms how each was created as well as a few others that referred to the cave openings as well.

The whole tour system was cleverly laid out as a series of automated lights, switches, and doors that maintained the environment and preserved the structures, while at the same time framing these wonders so as to maximize the experience for us novice spelunkers. Lights lit up passageways that we could not venture, as we continued further into the earth in search of glow worms.

At the middle of the tour, we encountered the glow worms, up close and person. Not actually worms, but the maggots of flies, they create sticky strings that hang from the ceiling and attract the newly hatched flies of water dwelling species that have emerged in the caves. They do this with bioluminescence, a chemical reaction that gives off light as a bi-product. Zane showed us some of the delicate strands and explained how they live to eat until they metamorphose and mate for 24 hours, after which, dying. He then turned out the lights so we could see the glow worms on the ceiling, not as many as in the larger caves, but brilliant just the same.

No, they are not stars, those are bugs. But just as the glow worms rely on water for life, so too does the cave itself. Water destroys and creates the beautiful cave structures. In several spots it could be seen running through the cave, even to the point where some tubers were drifting down through some deep rapids. 

Zane also explained where the limestone came from. It is built in layers in many areas where there are few formations growing off the walls. These layers are from ancient sea beds where calcified sediment was compacted and buried over time. This was further supported by the large scallop fossils he pointed out to us.

As the tour and jokes continued, Zane had the young ones pushing buttons to turn lights off and on, telling them to avoid the red button, as it released the giant golf ball as in Indiana Jones. He stopped at a great picture spot and took a few pictures for people, which we of course took advantage of. A photo opportunity 75 metres below the ground.

We stopped at one last really good ceiling filled with stalactites on our way out, it was by far the most spectacular of them all, and to think that it takes approximately 100 years for them to add 1 cubic centimetre. Zane also explained the significance of the cave to the Maori people, in that it was once an ancient burial and sacred place for one of the local tribes. There were also some issues which I did not catch all of, over the ownership of the caves, with differences in laws over owning the land above and whether they also owned the land below. Luckily the cave has been preserved so that countless generations can enjoy the wonders such as we saw.

As the tour came to a close, Zane first took us into a tunnel to show us something special, and after turning out all the lights, he proclaimed, "this is what the cave looks like when no one is here". After a good laugh, we headed back into the light and Zane lit up the stairwell ascending to the exit, the one we had traversed to enter the cave. The view of the stairwell, although man-made, was very thrilling to see, with the lit sides and the symbolic rock in the centre, being hit by water dropping from the ceiling. Zane mentioned it also made for some great acoustics as we took pictures, and started singing his own rendition of Celine Dion's "my heart will go on" using caving terms. He may possibly have spent a bit too much time underground, but his passion only added to the experience. We entered daylight and bused back to the cafe, where we said a thanks to our stupendous guide before heading to our next stop, to the heart of middle-earth!