Day #7 Taupo to Waitomo to Auckland

Today, our journey took us to Taupo to see Huka Falls a fast flowing river forced through a narrow rock chute. It is a class 5 rapids. No one was venturing through the chute when we were there. We opted to skip the jet boat ride and just hike along the edge of the falls.

water coming through the rock chute to the falls

Huka Falls

jet boat ride at Huka Falls

Huka Falls

Then it was on to Waitomo for a private tour of the Footwhistle glow worm cave. Another navigation snafu delayed us a bit, but we met Ross at the designated location in Waitomo a few minutes early. The glow worm cave story was quite interesting, and the glow worms equaled the cave story. Ross's son bought a farm and later found out that there was a cave of significant size (about 300 meters in length) on the property. They have developed the cave for tourism, but only do private tours (normally 2 to 4 but occasionally up to 10).

cave entrance

glow worms

glow worms

with the lights out

an eel in a pool of water in the cave

glow worms

glow worms

not glow worms

Glow worms go through 4 stages of life:

1. An adult glowworm will lay approximately 100 eggs, which will hatch larvae approximately three weeks later.

2. These larvae continue to grow for six to nine months, gradually increasing in size from a few millimeters in length until it’s 3-4 centimeters long. (This is what we saw in the cave.)

3. Once larvae have reached maturation, they will turn into pupa. This means the worm will make a cocoon, where it will hang for roughly 2 weeks before maturation. After the maturation stage has been reached, the pupa will exit the cocoon as an adult fly.

4. Once reaching maturation, the adult fly’s purpose is to mate and lay eggs. They cannot feed, as they only live a few days after reaching adulthood.

What we saw in the cave is the larvae stage. They dangle strands on a sticky substance, like a spiders web. The light (glow worms' glow) attracts insects inside of the cave to the dangling strands. They pull up the strands and have a meal. Yummy!

For our evening meal in Auckland, we opted for a pizza.

Tomorrow, we fly to Christchurch on the South Island.

The adventure continues.