New Zealand, North Island: Trekking, Glowworms and Craters

Black Water Rafting: Waitomo Caves

I’ve always had a strange love for caves. They’re mysterious. You typically have to get bundled up in warm clothes, strap a headlight on, and you might even have to crawl inside the entrance to discover the adventure inside. Strange things live in caves, and they usually contain pieces of ancient history that we don’t know much about. This intrigues me. So when I heard about the Waitomo caves with glowworms in New Zealand, naturally I put it on our ‘must do’ list. A cave with glowing worms… WHAT? I had to see it for myself. The caves are in NZ’s North Island, about three hours south of Auckland. After a (way too short) week in the South Island, Josh and I flew up to the NI, excited about the adventures we’d embark upon in the North. The caves were first. We rented another little car and drove down toward the caves, staying the night at a holiday park nearby with a tiny ‘cabin’ (when I say tiny, I mean TINY).

We did a lot of research on the caves. The options of how to attack them were numerous. You could walk right into the caves yourself, get a guided tour, or try one of the many different adventure day trips, each with something crazy to offer inside the cave like ziplining, repelling, tubing, climbing, or all of the above. Choose your own adventure. The thing is, there’s a river flowing through the center of the caves. And the water is COLD. We wanted adventure, but we didn’t want to freeze our butts off for an entire day. Eight hours in cold water of a dark cave wasn’t on my list of ‘musts’. And we wanted to stick with something that was in our price range. So after much consideration, we decided to go Black Water Rafting. YEA! It was definitely as cool as it sounds, we loved it! We chose the Black Labyrinth tour with The Legendary Black Water Rafting Co, in the Ruakuri Cave. It was about four hours long, so the perfect amount of time for us. We got quite the uniform! There were twelve people in our group, and we were all herded down to a changing area to put on extremely thick (and cold) wetsuits, a hardhat with a headlamp, and some sweet water shoes. Then we took a quick drive over to the river and picked out a rubber inner tube that we’d ride down the river within the cave.

The cave did not disappoint! It was beautiful. The water was flowing pretty quickly, and was crystal clear. The roof and floor were lined with stalactites and stalagmites, and the walls a clean limestone. We got some instructions, then were off! Into the dark abyss of the cave, tubing through the narrow tunnel of age old rock. When we got to a really dark area, we turned off our lamps, and the ‘glowing’ magic started. You could see thousands upon thousands of glowworms lit up, lining the cave walls next to me up to the ceiling. It was incredible! They illuminated a dim blue color, and it almost felt like we were stargazing rather than looking at living things. What a crazy and interesting phenomenon!

We learned that they are not actually glowworms. Unique to New Zealand, these tiny creatures are actually called Arachnocampa Liminosa, which are two-winged insects similar to maggots. They use their luminescence to attract food and burn off their waste. The chemical reaction between what the glowworms give off and oxygen from the air creates light. It definitely looks more exotic than the actual details sound.

After casually floating down the river gazing at the glowworms, we picked up the pace a little and did some tube ‘jumping.’ We got to two points where the water turns to some waterfalls. We stood backwards on the edge of these waterfalls, our tubes in both hands behind our butts, then jumped (backwards) into the water below. It was invigorating and SCARY! I can be pretty afraid of heights, so this was definitely not something that came natural for me. I decided I had to go right away before I got too nervous, and just went without thinking about it. The frigid cold water engulfs your entire body as you land in the river, and I couldn’t help but scream. The cold and nerves knocked the wind right out of me, but I loved it!

Black Water Rafting was an awesome way to see the caves. We learned about the glowworms and the history, and got a wet and wild adventure all at the same time. Afterwards they gave us a warm shower and some hot soup to get our bodies back to normal, and looked at all the hilarious pictures of everyone from the group. I’ll chalk it up as one of the best cave experiences we’ve had.

Trekking the Alpine Crossing: Tongariro National Park

Every year over 100,000 people make the daring decision to trek the Alpine Crossing, the most popular day hike in New Zealand. This hike is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is rated as one of the best day hikes in the world, and is home to the Lord of the Rings location of ‘Mordor’. It is an eerie landscape with jagged volcanic formations in every direction.

Watch our video of us making the climb here:

We were really excited to make the climb and see it for ourselves. I’d seen countless pictures of its craters, volcanoes, and florescent lakes, and could hardly believe it was a real place. What I didn’t realize however, was how many other people knew this same thing…which made it extremely crowded. We started the hike at sunrise, which made for an incredibly beautiful beginning. But there are only two morning busses into the park each day, so we started at the same time as the teaming masses. The first couple of miles felt sort of like herding cattle. We tried to chill out and not let it bother us, but it was frustrating. We go for hikes to get away from the chaos, and be one with nature. When you have that many people in front and behind you along the track, the only thing you are ‘one’ with is the feet of the people in front of you, and trying not to step on them.

Nonetheless, when we started climbing the hike became more and more scenic. It had completely different terrain from our hikes in the South Island, where it was much colder. This hike had more of a desert feel to it, with loose rocks, steam and volcanic ash soil. When we reached the top of the South Crater (our first big climb) things got flat and dry. We were walking through a dusty basin across sediment from eruptions thousands of years old, surrounded by craters; it felt like we were walking on the moon. Once we reached the end of that stretch it was time to climb up to Red Crater. This is where the masses of people started thinning out, and the trail finally felt calmer. The climb was pretty intense on a steep cliff, but it was short-lived. At the top we were left with an absolutely astounding view of the entire area.

Mt. Ngauruhoe (you’ll recognize as Mt. Doom in Lord of the Rings), Mt. Tongariro, Red Crater, Blue Lake, and the Emerald lakes, with the sun radiantly shining down upon the rugged volcanic rocks. The clouds were sitting in a thin layer below us. It was spectacular. It was at this moment when I realized why this hike was so crowded… and that it didn’t matter how many people were here. Witnessing this scenery was something you could never replicate, and something you want to share with other people. Nothing could capture how remarkable it was up there.

Then we went down to the lakes to see their brilliant hues up close. The trail down looked like one giant eroded sandpit. Josh unleashed his inner child and tore off as fast as he could running with reckless abandon, his legs moving as quickly as the falling dirt. I nearly had a heart attack watching him grow tinier as he got to the lakes, then decided I better go too rather than standing there worrying if my husband was going to trip and fall off a cliff. It was invigorating!

After the lakes, the landscape started changing. We were on the other side of the mountain and suddenly it no longer felt volcanic and rocky, it began looking more like a meadow, laced with beautiful fall colors. The last couple of hours felt more like the Kepler Track, with the occasional steam vent popping up along the trail. We stopped at the Ketetahi hut for lunch. It looked pretty battered, and we learned it was no longer an active overnight hut for trampers because in 2012 a small crater on Mt. Tongariro erupted, and some giant rocks flew right into the roof of the hut and destroyed it! Luckily it was winter and no one was staying in the hut, but it put into perspective just how volatile this area could become.

The hike was 19.4km (11.6miles) in total, and took us about 6 hours to finish. Our blisters from the Kepler Track were still healing and this hike resurfaced them all. Josh and I limped onto the bus at the end of the day incredibly happy we made it, but happy to celebrate being done with some Tim Tams cookies & wine.