NZ Tour Guide Itenary: Waitomo New Zealand
Waitomo New Zealand Visit the Waitomo Caves and explore a subterranean world of limestone formations, majestic caverns and magical glowworm grottos. The magical Waitomo Caves have been attracting visitors for more than 120 years, thanks to their incredible limestone formations and luminescent glowworms. ‘Wai’ is the Māori word for ‘water’, while ‘tomo’ means a hole in the ground. New Zealand prides itself as one of the few countries in the world with an incredibly wide range of natural resources and wonderful attractions. Whether you are going from Milford Sound in the Southern Alps to the North Island where you find the Ninety Mile Beach at the tip, the scenery is impressive and varied. One of the country’s most unique natural wonders is the famous glowworm caves. The cave system is located beneath the rolling green countryside of the King Country, one of New Zealand’s prime farming regions. Step into the belly of Waitomo for an unforgettable experience as you walk through majestic caverns, discover limestone shafts, marvel at the stalactites and stalagmites, and enjoy a boat ride through a grotto lit by thousands of tiny native New Zealand glowworms. The Waitomo Caves were discovered in the late 1800s by local Māori chief Tane Tinorau, who owned the land on which they were located. Tinorau and surveyor Fred Mace explored the caves together in 1887, floating in on a raft of flax flower stalks. Tinorau later found an entrance to the caves on land, which is the same entry point used today. The caves were opened to tourists in 1889, with local Māori acting as guides. Many of the staff working at the caves today are direct descendants of Chief Tane Tinorau and his wife Huti, as the cave and its lands were returned to his family in 1989, following a period of government administration. The nearby Ruakuri Cave is Waitomo’s longest underground guided walking tour and is also the only wheelchair-accessible cave in the Southern Hemisphere. Ruakuri is famed for its spiritual links to Māori and its incredible limestone formations and spectacular caverns. The village Waitomo Caves is named for the hundreds of caves present in the spectacular karst landscape. The limestone landscape of the Waitomo District area has been the center of increasingly popular commercial caving tourism since before 1900. Initially mostly consisted of impromptu trips guided by local Māori, a large cave system near Waitomo Caves was nationalized by the Crown and managed as a (relatively genteel) tourism attraction from 1904 onwards. A 1915 guide said, “It is reached by railway to Hangatiki, thence 6 miles by coach along a good road”. A visit to Waitomo Caves made number 14 amongst a list of 101 “Kiwi must-do’s” in a New Zealand Automobile Association poll of over 20,000 motorists published in 2007, and in 2004, around 400,000 visitors entered caves in the area. The Waitomo Caves Museum provides information about the karst landscape, caves and caving, and the history of the area. Waitomo Caves Geology The Waitomo and Ruakuri Caves are located in a region of abundant limestone rock. The cave structures we see today began forming around 30 million years ago from the bones and shells of marine fossils, which hardened into sedimentary rock after collecting on the sea floor. As the earth shifted and volcanoes erupted, huge slabs of limestone were lifted out of the sea. Over time, water flowed through cracks in the rocks, widening these channels until huge caverns were formed. There are approximately 300 known caves in the Waitomo region. The stalactites, stalagmites, and other cave decorations you can see in the caves are limestone crystal deposits, created as water drips from the roof or down walls. It takes hundreds of years for these decorations to form. For this reason, it is important that visitors to the caves do not touch the formations, as they are fragile and easily discolored or broken. Tourist caves Waitomo Stream flows beneath Ruakuri’s natural arch. Companies specialize in leading tourists through the caves of the area, from easily accessible areas with hundreds of tourists per hour in the peak season to extreme sports, like crawls into cave systems, which are only seen by a few tourists each day. The caves are noted for their stalactite and stalagmite displays, and (in the caves with streams running through) for the presence of glowworms (the fungus gnat Arachnocampa luminosa). Walks The Waitomo Walkway runs through the valley of the Waitomo Stream (a tributary of the Waipā River) for 3.3 km (2.1 mi) from the village to the Ruakuri Scenic Reserve. At the reserve, the Ruakuri Walk leads through short caves to the Ruakuri Natural Bridge. Te Araroa, a national long-distance walkway, passes through Waitomo. The section from Mt Pirongia joins the Waitomo Walkway to enter the village. The 17.5 km (10.9 mi) section to Te Kuiti goes over Mangapu The river suspension bridge and through Pehitawa Kahikatea forest. There are numerous limestone caves in the South Auckland District, the best known being the Waitomo, Raukuri, and Aranui Caves. These have been developed as tourist attractions at Waitomo, about 50 miles south of Hamilton. They have their setting in attractive surroundings of bizarre limestone outcrops, patches of bush, and streams and fields. Guides from the nearby hostel lead visitors along paths that are lit both for safety and for easy inspection of the limestone formations. The boat journey along the underground river to the Glow-worm Grotto, which is lit by the countless, tiny, clear lights of glow worms, is one of the many unique attractions of the caves. The caves are channels that have been dissolved out of limestone by underground streams over many thousands of years. Water seeping down through the limestone becomes fully charged with lime in solution. As this drips from the cavern roofs some of the water evaporates leaving a minute deposit of lime behind. Thus, with time, all the caves have become elaborated by stalactites, stalagmites, and incrustations.