Glow worms and rain, rain, rain...

Well, today wasn’t as good as the past few days. Actually, it’s the first day where I experienced some disappointment as the weather simply didn’t cooperate with me. That was a bit of a frustration because it’s one of the few days where I was really hoping it would. However, I know that I’m here in the autumn and autumn’s weather is usually dicey in any temperate climate.

So, despite the overcast conditions, I had a nice start to the day having breakfast provided by the hosts at the B&B, Colin and Janet. I was the first one there, so Colin spoke with me a fair bit about which cave I was planning on seeing and my drive down to Wanganui later in the day. He suggested an alternate route than the one I wanted to do through the mountains, but I was pretty set on doing it because I wanted to drive by some of the volcanoes situated in this south portion of the North Island. However, seeing that rain was in the forecast; I could only hope that it would be clear enough to see them.

I must mention a few things about breakfast, which was a wonderful muesli affair with fresh fruit, yoghurt, toast, coffee and juice. Apparently there’s a feijoa tree out in the yard, so there was a bowl full available. I had no idea what they were until Colin informed me and then I absolutely had to try one. Apparently, they aren’t found often in the supermarkets because they simply do not keep. They drop from the tree when they’re ripe and then spoil in about 3 days. I’m guessing this is why there’s so much feijoa juice available. Verdict: Tasty. The one I picked was still rather firm (as is my custom with picking fruit), so it likely wasn’t as flavourful as it could have been. Colin had me take some with me, so tomorrow I’ll eat them before breakfast before they go bad. A knife makes them easier to eat, kind of like a kiwi fruit. Also, they smell quite tangy. I have them sitting next to me as I type. It’s great.

Wait! One more thing!! I tried Vegemite and Marmite. Spread some on my toast. And, well, I’m guessing this dark brown paste, that could almost pass for plum butter in looks, is definitely an acquired taste.

Anyway, a drawback of not planning ahead presented itself today when I wanted to book a double tour of two of the area’s 3 caves. I wanted to do the Waitomo Glow worm Cave as well as the Aranui Cave, which is dry and is supposed to have impressed stalactites and stalagmites. Both tours would have only been 45 mins each. I didn’t want anything longer than that since I wanted to be out of Waitomo by noon. I had a 3.5 hour drive ahead of me and with the rain that was already starting while I was at the i-Site purchasing a ticket, I didn’t want to have to worry about time when it came to the curves in the mountains and wanted to arrive in Wanganui in daylight. So, I just booked the Waitomo Glow worm Cave since the next available Aranui tour would have been at 1pm. Oh well.

I started on the tour at 9:30 and there was only one other Japanese couple on it with me. The cave is on heavy lockdown, since there’s a heavy, mechanical door that seals that entrance. There were plenty of wide walkways (though some low ceilings) and lots of stairs that took you down into the earth, about 40 metres under. The lighting was dim and the guide carried a torch (flashlight) and lit up areas of interest. It’s obviously a cave that gets heavy traffic, sine I didn’t really fine the formations all that impressive. Almost a little dingy, actually, like they’ve been frequently handled. Still, as with all caves, for me, it was still awesome to be underground in the stillness of the 14 degrees celsius air. One section is called the “Cathedral” and apparently has excellent acoustics. The Viena Boys choir and Kiri Te Kanawa have sung here. Kind of reminded me of that one section of Lurray Caverns in Virginia. There’s even a formation called “The pipe organ”.

Now, the best part of the caves was, of course, the glow worms. Right after the Cathedral section, we were taken down to a platform that stood next to a low overhang right above the water. When the guide shone the light on the overhang, which I had to bend down to see, you could see hundreds of “dew drop” covered strands of varying lengths. Each glow worm makes about 20 strands and uses the glow in their tails to attract flying insects, which get caught in the “dew drops” that coat the strands. When they are hungry, they just reel them in. The caves are kept so dim because light and disturbs them. When they are disturbed, they dim their glow and then take an hour to recovery.

The highlight of the tour was stepping down into a metal boat (which was rather wet) and having the guide put out his light as he pulled us out into the water. We sat in almost complete darkness and quiet as we slowly moved along. Up above us, not too high up, the ceiling of the cave looked like a multi leveled night sky speckled with the soft, blue-green glow of hundreds (maybe thousands) of “stars”, or of course, glow worm tails. It was quite impressive. The guide then pulled us out of the cave (there’s a rope he’s been pulling us along on) to a dock. Overall, I enjoyed the experience but it did all feel a little commercial. Next time I’m here, I think I’ll do a completely different tour called “Spellbound”, but I won’t go into that now.

From there, I drove up to the Ruikuri bushwalk, which was recommended by Janet. It’s a relatively short loop walk or hike through some lush and lovely rainforest vegetation. The main features of the walk are several natural tunnels and caves, plus a beautiful river which occasionally flows into small rapids. The river winds through many of the caves, but it’s not something you can go see on foot from the path. There are varying leveling of steps, including some that take you in through the tunnels and one set into a large cave to overlook the river. This particular cave was the definitely the highlight. It was quite dark, so I used the “focus” light on my camera to gauge my way. Probably isn’t much of a problem when it’s sunny and bright but at this point there was a steady rain to accompany the dark gray clouds. At one point, I looked up at the ceiling in the darkest part to discover a small family of glow worms. I felt so bad that I had been using my flash for some of the pictures, because I’m sure that they didn’t much care for that.

I left Waitomo on time and began my drive down to Wanganui with hopes that the rain and clouds would clear enough to see the volcanoes at Tongarrio National Park. Aside from volcanic mountains likely being a positively spectacular sight, the main reason I wanted to see this place was because one of the mountains, Mt Ngauruhoe, is a rather unusual one as it is looks exactly what you think of when you think “volcano”. It’s symmetrical slopes form a perfect cone. This mountain is special for another reason and it’s the main reason I wanted to drive by this way (since I’m a dork) because it’s the mountain that was digitally altered to be Mount Doom in LotR! Alas, I wasn’t able to see it and I was really rather sad about the whole affair. I even drove up to the Whakapapa Village, had a small lunch, and perused the visitor’s center just in case it decided to clear. It had been clearing a little on and off on the drive so I was keeping my hopes up. However… no such luck. I briefly contemplated spending the night but even though the forecast said it might clear tomorrow morning, there are never any guarantees in alpine regions such as these. Argh! Next time. The Forgotten World Highway very close to this area and I’m still determined to drive that some point (Maybe next year. Still wanna come along Corina? :D).

The rest of my drive down to Wanganui was more curvy highway with the added factor of “slippery when wet” roads. Though it wasn’t as bad as Coromandel Peninsula, I still get pretty tense when there are cars behind me because they push. Opportunities to drive off or passing lanes are few and far between on these two lane roads. Still, I took it as my own pace. They can honk all they want when they finally pass me. I’m sure if I was used to the roads, I’d be able to take them faster too.

I got into Wanganui around 5pm with plenty of daylight to spare. I chose the Tamara Lodge Backpackers place. The downstairs is a little nicer than the last two hostels but the room is definitely nothing to write home about. Still, if I’m going to skimp anywhere, it’ll be on sleeping accommodations. I’m enjoying eating out three times a day and trying new foods. Though, tonight’s dinner at the Stellar wasn’t that great. Another lamb salad for me but the lamb was chewy and slightly “fishy” tasting, so I’m sure it was mutton and not lamb. Also, I didn’t care that much for the marinade, so that didn’t help matters. I did treat myself to some lemon cheesecake, which very tasty (though became very sweet very quickly) to try to brush off the clouds that followed me today, but in the sky and some in my mind. Tomorrow, I go to Wellington to see the Weta Cave at Weta studios. That produces some mixed feelings for me. Those thoughts can be hard to shake in the rain.