Episode summary:
I travelled to see some of the best glow worm caves in New Zealand. This is a must-do activity when you are in the Land of the Long White Cloud, as long as you’re not claustrophobic. You walk into the cave with a tractor inner tube which you use to float down a mysterious, underground river. It’s pitch black down there but when you float into the glow worm caverns you see the roofs absolutely covered with them. I have never experienced anything like it; it was a truly breathtaking experience. If you’re wondering ‘where can I see glow worms in New Zealand’ this might be the place.
Listen to a podcast about riding an underground river in New Zealand’s South Island to see caves full of fantastic glow worms.
Transcript – S1 E5 Meet New Zealand’s mystical cave dwellers
This week we’re going underground in New Zealand to meet some rather remarkable cave dwellers.
I’m a pretty gregarious, happy-go-lucky kind of chap, but having a stranger tuck their feet under my armpits is pushing things a bit. You might think that me positioning my feet under a different stranger’s armpits might even things out, but actually it only makes it more weird. At least we’re all wearing wetsuits and booties or we might run the risk of being fined for public indecency. I and my new comrades are assured that this is the only way to safely make the journey we’re about to make.
We’re each sitting in our own inflated tractor-tire inner tube on the edge of a slow flowing river in the Te Ananui Cave, several score metres under the surface of New Zealand’s South Island. Up there it’s a fine sunny day, with joyful, fan-tailed pee-wakawakas flitting and squeaking among the bushes. Down here it’s dank, dark and freezing and we’re all wondering why we signed up for this. We only have head torches so I can’t see the river very well. I just feel it lapping at my inner tube and doing its best to numb my backside, even through the wetsuit.
Embracing the darkness
Now that everyone’s feet are tucked under the armpits of the person in front of them, our guide turns out their torch and we follow suit. It’s as black as Acheron, although I’m hoping this is not a real life version of that mythological river of souls. We push off from our mooring and are at the mercy of the river. As we bob on the current and occasionally bump into rocks on the unseen riverbanks, we realise the importance of the feet under the armpits technique. We all grip a little tighter, not wanting to be the one that breaks free from the human chain and drifts down a pitch black offshoot… into hell!
I start to get a wonderful feeling of helplessness, a sense of shedding fear, letting go of control and literally and metaphorically going with the flow. We smell the earthy water – a vaguely metallic odour – and I imagine this is what the caves of Tolkien’s Middle Earth might smell like. The flow speeds up and the river changes. The trickles and burbles feel not so close now but as if their sound waves are spread out over a wider area. We’re all silent as we drift along our unknown, invisible river deep in the earth.
Glow worm spectacular
The speed picks up again and I think we must be traversing another rapid. I feel we’re descending slightly and as we do, we bend to the left and once again come into a wider cavern. Suddenly, above us, we see the roof, illuminated by a vast array of pinpricks of blue-white light. Glow worms! Thousands of them. Tens of thousands probably. The river has slowed to a crawl and we’re drifting through a magical subterranean world. The roof – we see – is not uniform, it dips towards us and rises away again but every inch of it is coated with glow worms. Their light reveals secret spaces in the distance and stalactites hanging down like giant tiger’s teeth. Not only is the roof glowing a slightly muted twilight colour but the scene is also reflected in the river, giving us the sense that we’re floating in space among a billion stars.
This is nature putting on a show. It takes me a minute or so but I then realised I’m unhitched, no feet, no armpits. We’re all floating free in this cavern, rotating gently, looking up and marvelling at this incredible natural wonder. My inner tube bumps a neighbour and we look at each other, smiling like awestruck children on Christmas morning, unable to formulate any words. In that moment, we’re temporarily struck dumb by beauty.
I want to stay longer. I want to moor on the riverbank and watch this display for hours. But the river is never still and it takes us very reluctantly away from our glow worm wonderland and into a chute. We’re now bobbing and bouncing along. We jolt off rocks and keep our hands and arms firmly tucked by our chests. I see a flash of light ahead, then more darkness, then another flash. And as we round a long bend, we get the familiar scent of earth. Our earth. Our land. With one final whoosh, we’re jettisoned into warmth and sunlight, and the gentle shallow waters of the glorious Waitakere Nile River.
© copyright Matthew Brace
