Waitomo Glowworm and Ruakuri Caves

By David and Miguel's suggestion, we ventured out to the Waitomo Caves today. It's about 2-1/2 - 3 hour drive from our lodging in Rotorua, but it was well worth the trip!

First of all, I'm going to make the statement that it's impossible to get a decent photo of a glowworm on an iphone camera. ;)
To see some really nice professional photos, you can check out their website.

We went on the Ruakuri Cave tour first, which was pretty amazing. We weren't allowed to take photos in the glowworm cave (for good reason) so all these photos are from the Ruakuri Cave. Very cool.

The boatride in the glowworm cave was simply amazing, and really hard to describe. We were about 20 people in a boat, with our guide. We were told to stay quiet the whole time, which everyone managed to do. To see this cave lit up with glowworms in near silence was pretty surreal and magical.








here, you can kind of get an idea of how the glowworm (actually at larva stage) and it's "web" work. They feed off mosquitoes and other small insects who get lost in the cave. The glowworm's light attracts the insects, as they think it is daylight, then get stuck in their single string webbing.


well, I know you can't actually see anything, but this a photo of some glowworms. ;)