We got up EARLY this morning so we could drive up to a place called Waitomo. There are lots of caves there that are famous for their glowworms. TOO COOL!!
I remember when I was a little girl watching the cartoon about the glowworms. I even had a few toys from the show! Ever since then I've always wanted to see the real thing, and now I finally had the chance!
We made it up to the Waitomo caves in time to go "Black Water Tubing" - tubing through a cave. Now, when I first heard about this I was expecting something like going on rapids through a cave, which would be wicked cool! As it turned out, there were no rapids, but it was still a fun little adventure.
We got to the "Legendary Black Water Tubing Co." and got to put on wetsuits. I think that's the first time in my life that I've worn a wetsuit, actually. We got helmets and rubber boots too. :) We looked pretty funny, really. We all hopped in the van and drove off to the cave entrance. Before we went down into the cave we were all given these little innertubes so we could float through the cave. Then we had to practic jumping off a small ledge into our tubes, which was fun. We had to practice because we had to do that very thing in the cave. Basically, you stand with your back to the water and the tube around your backside, and then fall backwards into the water. It was kind of fun, actually! :) In the cave itself we even had to jump backwards over a small waterfall.
There are no lights in the cave. I think that's so cool!! We had lights on our helmets, though. I went to a cave in China last summer, but there were lights all along the way so you never got the feeling that you were really in a cave. When we were in this cave we got to turn off our lights a few times.
When we turned off our lights, though, we got to see.....the GLOWWORMS!!! :) We stopped to enjoy them for a few minutes and talk about them. They gave off enough light that you still didn't feel the oppressive darkness completely. They looked kind of like little stars on the ceiling. It was really cool to see them, even though I would've liked to have no light at all for even just a few seconds.
The glowworms were neat little dudes. They're not really worms - they're actually larvae. Apparently their life cycle goes something like this:
1.) They're born (hatch)
2.) Lay around for 10 months in these little "hammocks", catching food ("fishing" if you will) and eating it
3.) Sleep for 10 days straight
4.) Wake up (as flies)
5.) Have sex for 2 days straight
6.) They Die
Not bad for little bugs, eh? And then all these people pay big bucks to go and study them or just see them. They're famous without even trying or even being useful. It's the simple things in life, you know.....They don't really glow, either. It's our word of the day: bioluminescence. They were neat little dudes at any rate, and I was so excited to be seeing the real thing!
We weren't always floating. To get to the cave you have to climb down this little entrance, and you're still walking on dry ground for a good part of the way. The rubber boots worked wonders - lots of traction, surprisingly! I wasn't worried about slipping.
Towards the end of the trip, we got to play a little game called "find your way out of the cave in the dark." :) We all had to turn off our helmet lights, and try to float down our little stream to the exit of the cave. It was fun!! Of course, when you got closer to the exit it was no big deal because you could see again. Not so much fun when you know where you're going! :) But we had our helmets on so there wasn't any real danger of getting hurt.
Whole trip was about 1 hour - by that time my hands were stiff from paddling through cold water! It took a while for them to thaw out.
After taking off our wet suits and washing/drying off a bit we got to warm up with complimentary soup & bagels back at the company headquarters. The bagel was really good! It's been so long since I've had a good bagel!! :) Also in the HQ was this fun little LOTR statue - I just thought it was so funny!
(Me and Gandalf)
Anyway, I decided that I really like caves. I don't know what it is about them, but I just find them fascinating! I think I actually enjoy that kind of thick darkness that you can actually feel - at least for just a little while. So, Dad, when are we going to go find our caves in the Blue Ridge Mts.? I'm all set! ;)
After we got finished with that and got back to our Top 10, we went to this little museum that was all about the caves. It was small, but fun! We went pretty much at closing time, so we were almost the only people there. I liked that though! We were the only ones in this little theater showing a short documentary about the glowworms. We had our choice of seats and could even lie down if we wanted. :)
Tonight we were just chillin' again. We watched more of the Rugby 7's, along with a lot of the other travellers staying there. One cool clip from the competition - after the Samoan team won, they celebrated by praying and singing a hymn together: "Take it to the Lord in Prayer" (at least that was the tune).
1 comment:
I love that quote. Glad you included it.
I remember watching the glowworms cartoon, too, and had a doll. I only really remember one episode, though, when the moon drop pool was drying out, and the wormy guy in the pj shirt & cap & the little blue-winged butterfly had to go find another far-away source of moon drops. The only reason I think I remember this is because of a song they sing on their journey! How silly is that?
Ok, enough rambling...
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