Waitomo, NZ: Finding Little Lights in the Dark

Last Monday, I drove away from Whiritoa, and I felt set adrift. Uncertain. Lost, even. I had a plan for the next two weeks, and a vague plan for the next six months, but somehow I still felt adrift rather than the preferred adventurous.

This feeling was only expounded upon when I got to Raglan, New Zealand, which is a surfing town on the west coast with a big music and cafe scene. The hostel there was full, mostly with people on working holiday visas who were staying in Raglan for several months. It was loud and busy, and bursting with people, all very nice, who, nonetheless, reminded me of college dorm living. Reminded me that legal adults who have graduated from university can still be shockingly immature. And somehow this was the group I had joined by virtue of also having a working holiday visa. It was this big, in-my-face exclamation mark asking me, “What are you doing?”

Only a few days ago, I would have metaphorically spread my arms wide and said with a grin, I’m traveling New Zealand. I’m actually doing it!

But suddenly it was hard. Suddenly I’m wondering why I have chosen to be half a world away from all the people who know and love me. Half a world away from the places where I feel most comfortable and most like myself. It’s finally hit me–the homesickness. Not just missing the people I love, which I’ve done since the beginning–wishing they were here with me. But missing the feeling of home. Of hugs. Of being in my own bed. Of the warm Colorado sun. Of sitting comfortably in silence with my people. Of cooking in a kitchen I know. Of having inside jokes. Of a quiet night not disturbed by the jackhammer-loud snoring of another person in the hostel room (ok, this one is not homesickness, just pure annoyance!).

Making it two months (almost two and half) before the homesickness hit is pretty good, but hit it has, and I have to be honest, it sucks.

Because I know there a million and one things I still want to do in New Zealand. Because I am still excited about doing those things, going those places, seeing those sights, but I also miss my home and my place in the world.

Before I left on my trip, my Nana gave me a little piece of paper with a quote she thought I needed to hear: “Attitude is the difference between an ordeal and an adventure”

Well, I’m searching for the right attitude, and it’s tough, but I know I’ll find it. I’ll start with the little things, with small lights among the darkness, just enough to get me through, and then, hopefully, I’ll be on the other side of this rough patch and back into the spirit of adventure that was so prominent before. But, I know I’ll find those little lights in this temporary darkness, something to get me through, because I’ve already begun.

The first little lights I was able to find to lift my mood, to give me hope, to make me feel adventurous again were actual little lights in the dark.

Glow worms.

Experiencing the glow worm region of New Zealand reminded me that I am an explorer. It doesn’t make everything easier, one place didn’t wash away my homesickness. But it reminds me that I can miss home and miss people and still be here, be happy, be brave, be adventurous. I’m not giving up. I’m not sinking into myself and sufffering. Because as much as I would love to head home right now, I am also unwilling to deny the part of me that desires exploration and adventure. And something has to give. Right now, even though it’s tough, I’m choosing to be here. To travel. To make what sometimes feels like the most difficult choice and push forward. So I’m taking the hardships with the triumphs, day-by-day, the lights with the dark.

And soon, I have to believe, it will again get easier.

Waitomo, New Zealand

I loved this little corner of New Zealand. That’s not to say it wasn’t tough and that there weren’t some tears in the shower at night (because one can be happy, awed, and homesick in varying degrees). Despite my more somber mornings and evenings, this area of New Zealand amazed me.

The towns are small, the land is mostly cleared for sheep and cattle grazing, and at first glance there’s not all that much to do from a visitor’s perspective. But I found out that there is far more to the region than just glow worms.

New Zealand is one of only two countries in the world with glow worms (Australia is the other). There are places to see them all over the North Island and some on the South. In fact, I’d already seen glowworms in a free-to-the-public cave in Northland. Waitomo is the most famous place to se them, I guess, and the sheer number of tours and activities surrounding glow worms in Waitomo is astounding. But my awe began above ground.

Waterfalls and Waterways

First, I had to see the waterfalls in the area, because, you know, waterfalls.

But, even as I specifically set out to see these waterfalls, I had low expectations. New Zealand has hundreds (if not thousands?) of waterfalls, and I’ve already seen quite a few, including the highest waterfall on the North Island.

These two waterfalls were each only about a 10 minute hike off the road, so I thought why not? I expected to reach the end of the path, glance at the little falls, and think yep, that’s a waterfall. Maybe snap a single picture for proof and then head off. It can’t be possible after so many previous waterfall viewings that I can still be impressed by cascading water…right?

Wrong.

Marokopa Falls

The first waterfall I saw in the Waitomo area was Marokopa Falls. It was a misty, rainy day and I followed the short gravel path down at a even angle. I had my phone for a picture, but I was already thinking of the other things I wanted to see in the area. I began to hear the falls, the water beating into the pool below, but still, I expected little.

I expected little is definitely right. I expected a small river, a narrow waterfall, a height of perhaps twelve feet.

Instead, I found a roaring behemoth around the bend. It’s hard to tell from the photos because I couldn’t get very close, but these falls are more than 100 feet tall and the water cascades from a wide vantage in tiered streams water. It was a waterfall to take my breath away and put a grin on my face.

Waitanguru Falls

Generally I find all my waterfalls by Googling “waterfalls in ____” or by going to the DOC website and selecting the region and then searching by command + F for “falls,” so I don’t usually see a picture beforehand. And, especially if the walking track is short or the hike isn’t marked “popular,” I assume it’s a small waterfall. Again, Waitanguru Falls proved me wrong.

Piripiri Cave Walk

This walk was also a short one, only five minutes, but a steep climb leads to a tall, but small (for the area) cave. Sturdy stairs descend into the darkness, showcasing the limestone formations, including stalactites and stalagmites.

Waitomo Walkway

This is a two to three hour hike that leads from the teeny tiny town of Waitomo (which is basically some restaurants, a primary school, and a bunch of accommodation options for tourists) through some rock formations, over farming fields full of cattle, and to the Ruakuri Bush Walk track. The walkway is great for visitors to Waitomo who don’t have a car, as it allows access to the Glowworm Caves (the biggest, most famous one that is also the most commercial) as well as the Ruakuri Cave, Aranui Cave, and the Ruakuri Bush Walk.

The Waitomo Lookout track that splits off from the Walkway is also a nice ten minute addition that provides a vantage point to surveil the area.

The absolute best track in all of Waitomo (in my biased option) is the Ruakuri Bush Walk. I did this track as a loop at the end of the Waitomo Walkway, but you can also just drive to the track start.

Ruakuri Bush Walk

Starting along a lovely river with high banks awash in dark green forest, the track primarily consists of bridges and wooden walkways. The natural limestone of the area shows through in the cliff faces and the small caves off to the sides of the track. I didn’t know what to expect from this walk, so when I reached what seemed like a dead end, I was shocked to find a short man-made tunnel leading through the limestone. Thankfully, my time in the Karangahake area with it’s many mining tunnels had coached me to go right in!

The wooden walkway was pretty high above the river at this point, following the curve of the cliff, but through the foliage below, I could just make out the tight s-curves as the water fought and frothed it’s way through the narrow limestone gorge.

The path continued, leading perpetually upward through a natural rock archway. Returning to follow the river, I finally realized that the water streamed determinedly into a cave that I could just barely see from the track. However, a few yards beyond, a detour lead into the ground and to a viewing platform where I could see the river rumbling through down below and then skirting around a bend and disappearing into the darkness. However, since I’d just followed the trail upriver for a kilometer, it was clear the river emerged from the cave, which was more of a natural tunnel, to then emerge into a white-water bottleneck in the gorge. The river, the tunnels, the limestone arches, and the natural tunnel worn away to form a cathedral-like cave…it all took my breath away. I think I could do this walk a hundred times and still be awed by the landscape.

Besides, if you go at night, there are glow worms all along the riverbank.

Just don’t go alone. I lasted less than ten minutes on the pitch dark trail before I was too nervous and had to leave. I probably would have been less nervous if there wasn’t another vehicle in the parking lot. But not knowing what kind of people might be out and about on the dark trail with me was far more terrifying.

The World Down Under

There are so many options to get into the caves in Waitomo. The cheapest, easiest option is a quick 45-minute tour to the Glow Worm Caves just outside of the little town of Waitomo where you get in a big boat and float across a lake beneath an arching cavern of glowworms (this is the most common promotional shot you see on posters, ads, etc). There’s also caving or spelunking tours or black water rafting tours where you abseil into a hole and follow the long winding cave, crawling and climbing waterfalls, and floating on the dark water in an inner tube while glowworms shine above your head.

I found out in the Waipu Cave and the Piripiri Cave and the Ruakuri Bush Walk that I get nervous underground. It makes my skin crawl and my brain begin to imagine worst case scenarios. The thought of floating on a raft through an underground river and climbing deeper and deeper into the earth made my pulse start to flutter. Then I read a review from a black water rafting tour about how, at one point, the participants had to turn their heads sideways on the raft while their helmets scraped along the ceiling to squeeze through a narrow area, and that was the end of even considering doing that.

But I didn’t want to float in a boat for fifteen minutes with 60 other tourists either.

Thankfully, there were in-between options that gave me adventure and fun without making me nervous.

Spellbound Cave Tour

This was the more tame of the two small group tours I did. It goes through two caves, one that is illuminated so you can see the beautiful limestone formations and the uncovered fossilized moa bones. Moa were giant emu-like birds that used to live in New Zealand, but died out sometime between the arrival of Polynesian people and the European explorers’ arrival. They came in all sizes, but the largest species of moa (with bones found to prove it) was three meters tall. Even more crazy, Maori stories (and fossilized remains) tell of a giant eagle that used to hunt the moa and sometimes even Maori children. This eagle died out at about the same time as the moa, probably because it’s primary food source had disappeared.

After following the cement pathway back out of the cave, the four of us followed the guide into another cave. This one still had a river running through it, like most caves in the Waitomo area. In fact, it is the underground rivers that created the more than 300 caves in the area, carving through and weakening the limestone rock and creating vast tracks and networks of caves beneath the lush landscape.

For the second cave tour, the goal was to eliminate light. In the first chamber of the caves, we turned off our headlamps and within a few moments, a few glowworms winked to life on the ceiling. Glow worms are really the larvae of a New Zealand fly, and they glow to attract bugs, which get caught in the sticky lines they drop from the ceiling. The insect is in it’s larvae stage for about nine months, then they create a cocoon and emerge as a fly. They live for three days, which basically gives them enough time to reproduce before they die.

Kinda gross. But the lights are really pretty!

Unlike the big 60-person boat tour I wanted to avoid, this tour spends about twenty minutes in the dark before we get to the grand finale. We walked in the darkness, stopping in two small caverns of glow worms before reaching a small raft. This truly gives the eyes time to adjust to the darkness. It was amazing how what had once been utter blackness actually formed into shapes. We wore white hard hats, and with the light of just a few glow worms, I could easily see the hats of my companions. Then, I could see features on people’s face and distinguish between water and rock in the cave. Truly, the world came alive with just the slight glimmer of glowworms above us.

Alas, taking pictures of glow worms is like a iceberg: what the camera captures is 1% of what the naked eye can see. So I gave up.

We climbed on the raft and the guide used a cable suspended from the ceiling to gently pull us along the still water. This is where the true magic happened. Above us was the largest collection (colony? grouping?). of glowworms we’d seen so far. They glimmered a soft blue, each one no more than an inch away from the one beside it. The entire narrow cavern roof was covered, the glow bright enough to be reflected in the still water below. I would have tried for a photo, but taking pictures of glow worms requires long exposure, which requires absolute stillness, and that wasn’t going to happen on a raft.

So I forgot about the photo and propped my chin on my palm and just enjoyed it. We floated for twenty minutes, up and down the narrow channel, and the cave tunnel blazed light blue, brighter than the stars.

Down to Earth Eco Cave Tour

If you want to see glowworms, a specific glow worm tour is the way to go, like the Spellbound Cave Tour above. But if you want a little bit of adventure (but not claustrophobic adventure) then I would definitely recommend this tour. Another off-the-beaten path, small group tour like Spellbound, this one is less curated. The cave you enter remains untouched–no lights, paths, cables. In the farmhouse above, we got dressed in super fashionable thermals and gumboots, then put helmets on and walked down to the cave through the native bush.

There were four of us and our guide, the perfect number for exploring.

We waded through thigh deep water and then began the scramble, climbing over boulders and lowering ourselves through narrow gaps. I never had to crawl on my hands and knees and though I had to duck and scramble and turn sideways to fit through a gap, it was never for long. What I mean is that I ducked under a low hanging rock face, but then could straighten up immediately on the other side. I turned sideways to slip through a gap, but after one step I was through and there was plenty of room to breathe. I never had to shimmy through a long, narrow passage or crouch down for a long time, wondering all the while if it would get narrower or if it would never end.

Additionally, I found with both tours that when I was underground with other people, none of that paranoid catastrophizing crept into my thoughts. Both guides were also clearly capable and set the whole group at ease.

We traveled through the cave for a while, pausing to take photos and talk about the rock formations and history of the cave. Then we scrambled through a narrow gap and hunkered down, switching off our headlamps. Again, it was mere moments and the glow worms started to wink into existence. There weren’t as many as in the Spellbound cave, or perhaps we didn’t give our eyes proper time to adjust, but it was still beautiful and breathtaking, and the fact that we’d scrambled here through a wild, untouched cave did make it feel extra special, as though we were the only ones who’d ever witnessed this breathtaking sight.

A final perk was that the guide took a photo of each of us with the glowworms blazing.

The trick for homesickness is to get out and do things, and the numerous new and exciting opportunities in this area were exactly what I needed.

The homesickness still seeps in, generally when I first wake up in the morning and face the prospect of the next day (and the many hundreds stacking up behind it, each one between me and home). But homesickness is not the kind of thing that simply disappears, and I’m lucky to have a place and people that I’m so strongly attached to that I miss it this passionately.

Besides, since I’m blessed (or cursed) with being both a curious adventurer and an introverted homebody, I just have to keep reminding myself that part of why I travel is for that sweet feeling of returning home at the end. And the longer I stay away, the more I learn and experience and explore, the sweeter my homecoming will be.

And another light blinks on, burning away a little bit more of the darkness.