Saul and Chelsia: Over the Moon and Back: Waitomo Fluorescent Maggot Poop Caves

On New Year’s Day we slowly dragged ourselves out of bed, packed up our stuff, and walked over to the U-Save car rental office to pick up our vehicle for the next leg of the trip. The walk was a lot longer than expected, but the check in process was a lot easier than expected. It only took about 5 minutes to check out at the office, then they handed us the keys and said have a pleasant trip. Considering that I hadn't driven in six months, and I have only ever driven on the right side of the road (in New Zealand they drive on the left) I don’t think I did too bad. Driving on the left side of the Auckland city streets on the way to the freeway was one of the more difficult things I have done behind the wheel of a car. I think our field director Isaac put it best when he said it feels like you are walking around with your shoes on the wrong feet. It feels incredibly familiar, but something just feels off.

Left side of the road driving!

We set off on the left side of the freeway heading south to Rotorua. We had planned a detour on our way to Rotorua; a stop in little town called Waitomo which is famous for its glow worm caves. Once we got to Waitomo, we filled our stomachs with some delicious Georgie Pies from McDonald’s (minced meat pies which are a New Zealand favorite according to the sign) and headed to the start of our glow worm cave spelunking and black water rafting expedition.

When we got there, they outfitted us in wet suits, booties, and helmets with flashlights attached to them. They also gave us harnesses for the repelling and zip lining portion of the cave exploration, which we had to put on and secure ourselves! We have been repelling and zip lining before, but never had to strap all of our own equipment and be the only ones to make sure it was snug enough to keep us in. There was a pretty tight race for my anxiety between having to put on my own gear and knowing that we had to wear wet suits because the water we would be black water rafting (basically swimming) through was around 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit). Yikes! What did we get ourselves into!?

Turns out we got ourselves into a lot of fun. We started out with a long repel that took us through a small hole in the mountain deep into the cavern below. Once inside, we took a short hike then zip lined in the dark with nothing to light the way but the glow worms in the rock all around us. We ended up at a cliff overlooking the river running through the cave. We sat down with our team, our feet hanging over the cliff side, and took a break to have some hot chocolate and oatmeal cookie bars. I have to say the guides did a great job keeping us fed and warm to avoid hypothermia while inside the cave. We had another stop later on with pieces of chocolate and warm tang (yum!). We were fortunate to be in a pretty small group that had some interesting characters; the funniest of which had to be the Russian engineer who liked to scream obnoxiously, make funny faces, and have his picture taken.

After our break we jumped off the rock with black tubes (black water rafts) on our butts—splash! Right into freezing cold water! You do get used to it pretty quickly when wearing a wet suit though. We floated up and down the river running through the cave and took some time to admire the glow worms. It wasn't until we admired them for some time that the guide decided to tell us that “glow worms” aren't really worms at all. They are actually the florescent feces of a specific kind of fly larvae that live in the cave. This very special breed of fly hatches, lives for about 48 hours, lays new eggs, and dies. So essentially what we were fawning over was really the glowing poop of cave maggots. Sounds a lot nastier when you think about it that way, but it really is a beautiful thing to see.

We had to do some hiking through the narrow tunnels in the rock to get out of the cave. I wasn't expecting the hike out to be as perilous as it was. There were some scary looking eels swimming through the shallow water we had to walk through and our guide told us that they bite (not saying that it’s true, but that’s what he told us). We also had to do some rather intense climbing up waterfalls to regain some of the altitude we lost when repelling.

We eventually made it out; exhausted, but alive. They were nice enough to have tomato soup and bagels waiting for us when we got back to the starting point. It was a great end to a fun expedition. After relaxing for a minute and letting out heart rates and body temperatures return to normal, we headed back to the car and got back on the road to Rotorua.

-S