Adam took me back to his hometown in Huntsville, Alabama for Thanksgiving a couple of years ago and introduced me to caves. I had never experienced such fear, intrigue, adrenalin and the will to live after getting in, and then out, of the cave on Green Mountain. I was so happy to be out of that cave and I was still alive! So now we look for caves to go in on our vacations or any other adrenalin inducing activities.
The north island of NZ is littered with more than 300 caves that people know of. There are probably a lot more that are yet to be discovered, but since most of the cave systems there are under privately owned farmland, there are only 7 caves that the public is allowed to go in. We were able to see 4 of them – 3 of them in one day. The cave tour companies lease the land from the farmers in order for people to experience them and charge an absurd price to do so.
The first cave we went in was Aranui Cave, which was discovered in 1910 by a Maori hunter who was chasing a wild boar in the jungle when it suddenly disappeared right in front of him. On closer inspection he found that the boar had escaped into the mouth of the cave. Since it was one of the first caves to be open to the public and back then they didn’t realize how badly humans and climate could damage the place, they mistakenly poured concrete throughout the cave to make the pathway less muddy, but in turn ruined the cave floor forever and tourists through the generations have snapped off many of the stalactites coming down from the ceilings. Of all the caves we went in this was probably the least impressive one. It did have an alabaster column in it that Adam said was rather rare and that he’d never seen one before. Oh! And we got to see a cave Weta which if you’ve seen the cave crickets in Alabama....these were 10 times the size as those and could very well knock someone out if it fell from the ceiling and landed on your head!
The second cave was Ruakuri Cave. Ruakuri, or ‘den of dogs’ as it translates into English, was first discovered by local Maori between 400 and 500 years ago. The name comes from the wild dogs that made their home in the cave entrance. They had started making the cave accessible to the public in the 1980’s, but then there was a big land dispute over who owned the caves. A farmer thought he should own the land above and below and the government thought they should own the land below, yadda, yadda...so the cave was left untouched for 18 years.
The farmer who snuck in the cave to plant this sign has darned good handwriting.
When they decided to go back and take a look at re-opening it, the whole cave system was full of chest-deep mud. This posed some problems, but they quickly decided to dig it out and very carefully. With new technology having been developed, they used an elaborate and scientific system to make this cave accessible, but also keep the integrity and climate of the cave intact. Just to go in, you have to go through an underground airlock 7 stories high. Since the Maori people believe that the living should not go underground (it’s where the dead live) they put a large greenstone at the bottom of the airlock, which is the entrance to the actual cave, with a constant flow of water dripping on it that you’re supposed to dip your fingers in to get cleansed before you enter the underworld. When you exit, you re-dip, just to ensure no bad spirits had followed you out. Then you walk down a Star Trek type of corridor complete with an airtight steel door at the end. Once inside they lock the door behind you and turn the lights on in the cave.
The first thing you notice is that the walkways are all suspended above the cave floor. The second thing you notice is a giant ‘cave curtain’. I had never seen one of these and I thought it was the coolest cave formation ever. It was probably about 10 feet tall with perfect ripples. It looked like it would make a nice drapery at home in my living room. So intricate and delicate and it took over 250,000 years for it to be made drop by little drop. This cave was awesome and our guide was a very knowledgeable geologist. He had helped dig the cave out in the beginning and loved his job. We also had our first glowworm sighting and we were able to actually see the worms up close and they weren’t worms at all! We went through a series of airlocks and saw quite a few rooms with stalagmites everywhere, one of which looked like a little gnome city. There were tons of fossils to ooooo and ahhhhh over as well.
Suspended walkways made for a unique experience, that allowed you to view the original cave floor.
The third cave we went in was the Waitomo Glowworm Cave. The tour starts out with a short walk into a giant room that apparently has fantastic acoustics. A bunch of different choirs from around the world (and even Kenny Rogers) have recorded songs in the room. Then we go into a dark grotto and get into an aluminum boat. Our guide stands on the bow and gingerly pulls us through the grotto using ropes attached to the cave walls. Everyone is really quiet and you can only here water dripping every now and then. There is no visible light down there and as your eyes slowly adjust to the darkness you can start to make out the shapes of the people around you and then…bam! The whole ceiling of the cave is covered in what looks like stars shining on a crystal clear night.
It was kind of weird to be able to see by the light of the glowworms. I mentioned earlier that they aren’t actually worms so I’ll explain that: Glowworms are actually fungus gnat larvae. They make a little hammock out of their silk webbing and attach themselves to the cave ceiling and then let out more webbing with dewy droplets on it to ensnare unknowing bugs. They have enzymes in their poop that make their butts glow. The unknowing bugs fly towards the ceiling thinking that it’s actually the sky and get caught and then eaten. Another interesting tidbit is that this is the only time in a fungus gnat’s life that they actually get to eat. Once they morph into gnats they no longer have a mouth or a stomach.
Gross Gloworm slime traps.
Adam and I had a great day of spelunking and were looking forward to our last cave adventure the following day. Squeezing through the entrance into the Green Mountain cave was the scariest thing I’ve ever done. Our next adventure is about to trump that.
