Touring New Zealand and the Glow Worm Caves

New Zealand is lush, open, and just all around beautiful-and I got to spend three lovely days in the land of the Shire. My parents somehow have friends and family in almost every part of the world, and New Zealand is no exception. For the entire three days I was in the country, my parents' friends were kind enough to drive us around and give us an inside tour of the place.

Even though it was summertime, it was also the rainy season. On my first day in New Zealand, it rained all day. Fortunately the plan was to do a driving tour of Auckland, the biggest city in New Zealand, and I was able to see the view of Auckland from Mount Victoria, the highest volcano in the city-that is also extinct- as well as Eden Park, where the 2011 Rugby World Cup will be held, and the Auckland Harbor Bridge, an Auckland icon considered by some as a mere copy of the Sydney Harbor Bridge.

On my third day I had an early flight back to Sydney, so we spent most of our time in the airport. But, the real highlight of the trip occurred on our second day in New Zealand, when my parents' friends drove us two and a half hours from Auckland to Waitomo to see the glow worm caves.

Waitomo is a small city, with only 41 residents, but its caves attract over 500,000 people per year. Technically, the glow worms are fly larva, or maggots, but they are called glow worms because it sounds more attractive to tourists. Glow worms are blind, but in the dark caves where they live they emit a blue light that attracts insects that they trap and eat. Once the glow worms mature into flies, they only live for one to three days, just long enough to reproduce.

We took a three-hour tour through Spellbound, which consisted of two caves and a tea break to enjoy the scenery. In the first cave, we wore hard hats with flashlights so we could navigate in the dark. After fumbling around for a while, our group got onto a boat in the middle of the cave, where we enjoyed a relaxing ride on the river that flowed through the cave and admired all the blue glow worm lights.

The second cave didn't house many glow worms, and it was powered by a generator so we could see inside. We admired the stalagmites and stalactites formed by years of the water carving out limestone.

If you're ever in New Zealand, I highly recommend visiting the Waitomo caves. For more information and photos of my experience, check out my blog post, "Waitomo Caves."