Waitomo’s Glow Worm Caves

It’s pitch black all around you.

However, above you, thousands of little iridescent blue lights are glowing brightly.

It looks like a night sky on the very clearest of nights, and the iridescent blue looks enough like bright stars, that your mind wants to make constellations out of the shapes it sees.

Only no constellations are to be found, as these iridescent lights are the blue light of glow worms in one of the many caves of Waitomo, New Zealand.

I wish I had pictures from inside the waitomo glow worm caves, but you’re not allowed to take pictures.

So the pictures that appear with this post are of us just outside the cave, and at the entrance to the attraction.

They don’t show the incredible crystalline structures – the stalactites, or the stalagmites, or the glow worms themselves.

So what’s so cool about a bunch of worms in a cave?

Well, they glow.

The reason they glow?

They hang little strings of spindly thread down from where they live (on the roof of a cave), and then they glow, so that little insects (fleas, gnats, mosquitoes) unfortunate enough to have found themselves in such a cave will be attracted to the lights.

In the process of flying toward the light, they are actually going to their death as they will be caught in the sticky thread of a glow worm and eaten.

That might not sound pleasant, but one cool thing about the Waitomo glow worm… after 9-12 months, it cocoons itself, and comes out to procreate.

The adult glow worm is something like a mosquito, only it doesn’t have a mouth.

Mouthless mosquitoes… I knew there were many reasons to like New Zealand.

But here’s the best part.

Halfway through the tour of the cave, you get on a boat that takes you out into the middle of an underground lake (which is actually an underground river, formed by water dripping through rock.

As you get into the middle of the lake and look up, all you see are these beautiful lights.

The experience lasts 10 minutes, but I could have spent hours there.

It’s like seeing the night sky, while outside it is broad daylight.

When you come to New Zealand, do the Waitomo Glow Worm caves.

There are many options for seeing the Waitomo glow worms (from super adventurous tours of abseiling and blackwater rafting, to the more mellow and tranquil option we took), but one thing’s for certain… it’s a natural attraction that is not to be missed when in New Zealand.

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