Tom On day 11 of our travels in New Zealand, we visited yet another highlight of this trip – Waitomo Glowworm Caves. Although it was a little expensive at $89 per person, it was well worth it. Find out more in this post!
New Zealand Travel Itinerary Day 11 – Ruakuri Visitor Centre and Waitomo Glowworm Caves
This morning, we left Huhu Chalet at 10am to Ruakuri Visitor Centre. Here, you’ll be able to find a restaurant and visitors were already dining here when we arrived this morning. There’s also a souvenir shop where you can get not only Waitomo Glowworm Cave souvenirs but also New Zealand souvenirs as well.
As we were a little early for our 11am session, we were able to be slotted into the 1030am group. Our guide this time was Ciarne (pronounced as Xi-Arn) who laid down the rules for the visit – including not to touch the cave formations as oil secretions from our skin can damage the limestone in the caves.
Soon we were brought into the cave tunnel system where we were to descend into the caves via this spiral drum ramp – a beautiful orange tunnel that brings visitors to the start of the caves proper.
At the bottom of the orange spiral drum descent, you’ll come to rock with water dripping over it. Visitors are allowed to sprinkle themselves with the water before and after the visit.
One of the first limestone formations (made of calcite / carbonate mineral deposits) are the stalactite and stalagmite formations. The Stalactites actually grow from the cave ceiling down while the Stalagmites grow from the cave floor up. One way to remember is that Stalactite has a “T” that represents growing from the Top downwards while Stalagmites has a “G” that represents growing from the Ground upwards.
The other interesting formation are the Flowstones or sheetlike deposits that are formed by water and wind. According to our guide Ciarne, these take twice as long to form as compared to the pillar formations mentioned int he previous paragraph.
Soon it was time for the main highlight of the tour…
As mentioned in our previous post, if you’re staying at Huhu Chalet or Waitomo Caves Guest Lodge, remember to drop by the Waitomo Caves Museum inside the Waitomo Caves Visitor Centre for a small sum of $5. There you’ll be able to learn that glow worms are actually
LARVAE OR MAGGOTS OF FLIES!!!
These larvae or maggots actually spend 9 months of their lives feeding within the caves. The silk threads are formed by the mucus of the maggots and act like “fishing lines” that attract smaller insects, causing to be stuck to these sticky mucus threads. They then spend only 2 days as flies, laying up to 120 eggs before they perish and the cycle repeats.
Back to the glow worms, they are actually quite territorial in nature. Hence, you’ll also notice that the lights are quite spaced out. They also have the tendency to eat the eggs of each other if they are hatched earlier. The stronger the blue lights emitted, the hungrier the glow worms are as well…
Towards the end of the visit, we were told of the story of James Holden that linked to the Waitomo Glowworm Caves. In 1904, James Holden actually started to run tours to the Waitomo Caves. However, the Government caught wind of this and decided to take back the caves as visitors were started to extract “souvenirs” such as the stalagmites for themselves. However, the story didn’t end there. James Holden’s grandson, Jimmy Holden then took the government to court and actually won. He then put up “no trespassing signs” which can still be seen today in the caves.
The tour ended at about 1210pm or about 1.5 hours. Love the “blue stars in the night skies” by the glow worms – though now that we know they’re actually maggots, they’re a little less cute 😅
New Zealand Travel Itinerary Day 11 – Waitomo Homestead
For lunch, we headed to Waitomo Homestead – known for their pies!
This time we ordered the minced meat pie ($4.5), pork spring roll ($8), thick banana shake ($7.5) as well as the ale steak and cheese pie ($4.5). East India Pale Ale ($10) rounded up lunch this afternoon.
As expected, the pies were excellent. Tasty, meaty with a nice outer crust. On the other hand, the spring roll was expensive and tasted meh. Do not be as adventurous as us. Focus on the pies.
In terms of ambience, we love the lodge feel as well as the outdoor seats where you can get fresh air of the countryside. Overall, a good rest stop before we continue our journey north back to Auckland New Zealand.
We reached Devonport at about 4pm this afternoon. We headed straight for our AirBnB and were very satisfied with the size and cleanliness of the room…
While we settled into the room, we also watched a little bit of The Chase on TV. With regard to the AirBnB, there was a wardrobe, big bathroom, living space and cooking facility. After we checked out the premise, we drove round downtown Devonport before visiting Takarunga / Mount Victoria…
We learnt a little bit about parking signs in New Zealand during this trip. For instance, this sign says
“P120 / 8am – 6pm / Mon – Sun”
So this means that from Mondays to Sundays, during the times of 8am to 6pm, you can park for 120 minutes or 2 hours. It also means that if you’re parking after 6pm, there is no time limit or that technically, you can park continuously at 4pm.
We parked and strolled a little about downtown Devonport. Here, you’ll be able to head to the waters and on a clear day, be able to have a beautiful view of Auckland, right across the waters.
To round up our visits for the day, we headed up Takarunga aka Mount Victoria of Devonport. Yet another “Mount Victoria”, the third of our visit this time (i.e. Wellington, Auckland, Devonport). Strolling up the gravel pathway, we were treated to amazing views of Auckland from Devonport…
At Mount Victoria Devonport (Takarunga), you’ll also be able to find the Fort of Mount Victoria as well as model of the landscape around Devonport…
The weather was fantastic this evening as we were able to see the sun coming through the clouds. We also saw a gun, a station and a writer’s guild up on Mount Victoria Devonport.
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As we had the cooking facilities at the AirBnB this evening, we decided to make our own NZ Steak Dinner since we were able to get really good quality steaks from the supermarkets. This time, we bought a thick NZ Sirloin Steak ($30 – for 2) and a bottle of wine ($14), dip for $4 and a pre-packaged soup $4 that could be warmed up via the microwave.
Turned out to be a perfect dinner as great beef just needed to be lightly seared. It was tender, juicy and satisfying – especially when we made it with love on our own. The romantic dinner with wine rounded up our evening on day 11 of our travels in New Zealand. Stay tuned on day 12 of our travels where we would be basically chilling and taking things down a notch – even squeezing in time for a movie at the old movie theatre – The Vic Devonport.
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