Waitomo is an inland area, about 100km southwest of Auckland, on
the north island. The area's main attraction is a series of caves, including
the Glow Worm cave.
Our visit to the cave was a washout, literally. New Zealand had received so much rain that the cave that they normaly run a tourist boat through was flooded almost to the roof.
Here' the story on the glow worms. These little 1/2" buggers are
the larve of a moth. They roost on the cieling of this cave and lower
down 20" long sticky threads to snag flying insects. The next trick
is that the glow like a firefly in order to attract unsuspecting flying
insects. They live in mass, so that the cave cieling is said to glow
in the dark. Too bad we could only see just a few of them glowing
from where we could get to.
[pix of cave]
Since the caves
was flooded, the kids and I headed off on foot into the hills. Here
we're standing on a ridge, with a valley on either side. Very refreshing,
if not wet and cold. It was a short hike up a hill and through the
woods, we popped out into a field. We found some cool mushrooms growing
under a tree.
This little fan tail bird kept following us around through the field.
We thought that we had entered his territory and that we had pissed his
off. But he wasn' attacking us, and didn't seem to be bothered.
More like he appreciated our company. Some time later, someone filled
us in... He was following us around to see what insects we might
stirr up our of the grass. Damn. I thought we were loved.