December 21st, 2005 - Glow Maggots?

The next day we were off to 'Hells Gate' and then Waitomo and the rain just kept coming. Hells Gate is a gepthermal park near Rotorua, with Sulphur pools, bubbling pools and mud volcanoes. We spent an hour wandering around the park and then it was off towards the famous glow worm caves constantly fearfull that the water level would rise too much to go into them. Driving through the winding roads of the country side, stopping occasionally for pictures, I was swearing at any rain we came across not wanting to have to drive the whole route again the following day. Sure enough we arrived and to Laure's dismay, the Black Water Rafting Labyrinth tour was still going on. We proceeded to get our suits on and stand in the rain putting on damp wet suits and booties. Anyone that has ever put on a wet wet suit can sympathize when I can tell you that it is not fun and both Laure and I were a little suspect of what we had got ourselves into. We drove to the cave where the fun continued, they made us jump backwards in an innertube into a freezing cold stream to activate the wet suits and prepare us for the temperature. Bear in mind that we had just come from sunny, 30' temperatures in North Eastern Australia and were now in full wetsuits jumping in Mountain runoff spring water and it was raining! My little white rubber golloshes were filled with water from the stream and I continued to squish in them for the rest of the guided tour. The mouth of the cave was small by anyones standards and as Laure's eyes widened at the sight, we held hands, gritted our teeth and set off into the abyss with our faithfull inner tubes, helmets and head lamps! It doesn't help the fact that she's afraid of the dark, small spaces and she doesn't like the water ;) After walking through running water through the entrance cave we joined up with the main stream and started floating down peacefully, jumping over small water falls and linking rafts with our fellow rafters. At one point we were all 'eeled' up with our feet under the arms of the person in front of us and our lights extinguished. It was so peacefull and serene with the tiny little flourescent green dots on the cave walls (the glow worms) all around us and looking backwards all you could see was the little red LED winding around the corners of the stream - very cool. During our adventure tour we also learned that the glow worm is actually more accurately a glow maggot and the bright glow is given off by its feces to fool flies and other insects that enter the cave into a sticky web hanging from the ceiling, thinking that it is a way out. When the fly hatches it seeks only to reproduce for its four day life cycle, before it dies and lays millions of new eggs to carry out its legacy. Unfortunately, we didn't get any pictures during the actual caving, so we took a picture at the Waitomo Museum to make up for it!