Eats, flies and dies

Wednesday 14th March 2007
When I was planning the itinerary for NZ, I had originally put in a stop at Waitamo on the North Island to visit the glow worm caves, supposedly the best in NZ. Adding this stop was going to put around 300km on our driving – somewhere between Ahipara and Rotorua. I knew I had to cut something, and also knew there were glow worm caves at Te Anau but, of course, I wanted to see the best. So I took advice from my old friend Tripadvisor.com under the question/heading ‘glow worm caves, Waitamo vs Te Anau.’ A very helpful person (don’t know gender, everyone goes under pseudonyms on that site) came back to me and said, ‘hey, just how interested are you in glow worms? Unless you want to be an expert, either will be good’. Just the answer I needed to cut the 300km round trip to Waitomo, so last night we went on the ‘glow worm caves’ trip at Te Anau that I booked at the same time I booked the Milford Sound overnight trip. And it was excellent. Started with a half hour boat trip across to the other side of Lake Te Anau and then a walk through the entrance to the caves – caves carved by the force of water from the underground rivers which run into the lake. Quite spectacular caves, in themselves. Then we boarded a small boat (just ten of us at a time) and we ‘glided’ through the caves (the boat guide did this by means of a pulley rope, so that it was absolutely silent – we’d all been told to be silent and even Sid and I obeyed). And it was amazing. Christmas fairy lights will never be the same again. Hundreds or thousands of glow worms twinkled in the pitch black caves – their twinkling light the only thing we could see. No torches or cameras were allowed because the glow worms catch on to this and stop twinkling. So, I hear you ask, just what are glow worms and what do they do. Well, they are a lava stage of the fly. What do they do? Nothing, except glow, eat (other insects) turn into flies for just a few days, then die. Fascinating. And we’re told, only found in New Zealand and Tasmania. Anyone know any different?