Caves and Farms

Feb 14 The Underworld…

            I couldn’t have come to New Zealand without exploring the limestone caves that lurk underneath all the sheep pasture. We were in Waitomo (the caving capital) for 2 nights. There are over 300 caves in the area, 3 of which are pretty commercialized and touristy. We met a man working at the general store that had guided in the caves for 20 years and we got his recommendation on which tour to do (there are approximately a trillion companies). He recommended the Spellbound tour because it is small group (10 people!) and you get a really long time to let your eyes adjust. So we did that one!

            At the mouth of the first cave there was a little stream that carved out the cave over thousands of years (rainwater absorbs carbon dioxide and becomes slightly acidic and then carves out caves from the limestone rock). The fun began before we even got in the cave! There was a freshwater eel that lived uner a rock, and we enticed it out by wiggling our fingers in the water. It was at least 2 feet long and it slithered out and tried to bite us! Apparently the tour groups usually feed it. We got to touch it and it was all slimy and squishy. It even raised its head out of the water to try to eat us! Eventually it got fed up and went back under its rock. Then the real fun began! We went into the cave and walked along amongst stalactites and stalagmites and soon we saw a trillion little blue lights on the ceiling. They were thousands of glowworms! Turns out (unromantically) they are actually the larval (maggot) stage of a fly. They were about 2 inches long, and they glow at their rear end to attract flying insects. (They glow by combining a waste chemical they produce with oxygen and a protein to make light, and then recycle the chemicals to glow continuously.)

Here is a rough sketch of their entire lifecycle (nerd moment):

            *disclaimer, this is from memory, feel free to do your own wikipedia-ing*

            First a female glow fly comes along into a cave and lays about 300 eggs on the ceiling. Glowworms like caves with water running through them to bring them food. They also need about 90% humidity to keep from drying out. Eventually hatch (I don’t know how long that takes), but immediately after they are brought into the world they start to build a nest for themselves out of silk and mucous. I think they can build a centimeter every 15 minutes, so they are done their building quickly after hatching. Then they spin up to 70 threads and suspend them from the cave ceiling. They put little droplets of mucous on the threads to make them sticky. They do this by moving their head back and forth a number of times and then pushing it down the thread. Then the wait until the stream carries some insect larvae into the cave, which metamorphose into flying bugs (they could be caddis flies, mosquitos, etc.). The flying bugs fly up towards the glowworm lights since they think they are the stars (flying bugs always try to fly to open space, aka the sky), and they unsuspectingly get caught in the sticky death threads of the hungry worms. (Who knew glowworms were carnivorous fisher-bugs?!) The glowworms chew up their threads to reel in their meal and gobble it up. Then they go along continuing to monitor and repair their threads for their next catch. The glowworms stay in maggot stage for about 300 days before metamorphosing into glow flies. They are only in fly stage for 3-4 days during which they must find a mate and lay their eggs in the cave again. I asked, and apparently the adult flies occasionally get caught in other glowworms’ threads, so these carnivorous fisher-bugs are also cannibals!

            We got into a little boat and then went along the stream to a waterfall. There were ropes above our heads so our guide could pull us around. There was a milky way of glowworms above us! As our eyes adjusted more, we could see even the tiniest of lights above us (about 10 feet high). There must have been millions! It was so magical. We tried to make up constellations. Everyone was excitedly chatting but eventually we were all quiet and just sat in awe.

            Then we had tea and cookies in a little shack in a field between the two caves. I thought it was really adorable!

            The next cave had a few glowworms, but it was mostly full of calcite crystal formations. There were off-white crystals all over the walls. As the rainwater loses its carbon dioxide to the cave air, the calcium carbonate (I think) solidifies in the cave. Near the front of the cave their was a goat skeleton that could have wandered in and then died. Later on there was a HUGE cathedral/room with a high ceiling. There were also moa bird remains, and a cow skull form a cow that fell down a hole in the middle of the cave and couldn’t get out. We also saw a giant cave cricket and some cave spiders.

            After the cave tour we went on a 3-hour walk with anew friend from the hostel to see a giant natural tunnel and some other little cave formations. There were lots of cows along the way and karst rocks jutting out of the fields.

            Our hostel was a one kilometer walk from the town, and it had fantastic neighbours! Aka 2 goats, a young cow, a big deer thing and a little pig! We made friends with the deer first by petting it and feeding it leaves, and then the pig wandered over to the fence and Laura touched it and it fell over. We petted it for at least half an hour. It was so happy it closed its eyes and crossed its ankle (I LOVE pig feet!!) and grunted a bit if we stopped petting it. Our new best friends!!

            Then we came back to Auckland on Valentines Day… what a mistake. There were hormonal, crazed young travellers everywhere at our hostel. It’s unsettling. Our plan was to dress up in our baggiest clothes and/or stuff out bellies and pretend were pregnant and try to go see some music somewhere without getting bothered. We went to our favourite Irish Pub and had a ball dancing by ourselves!

Playing with the deer creature next door to our hostel. 

It wanted Laur's tea. 

Pig heaven.... Crossed ankles even! 

Ha! 

Goat neighbour. 

Mouth of the first cave... spo00o0o0oky

Eel friend. 

Calcite crystal formations inside the second cave. 

Glow worm threads! 

See the mucous droplets???! 

Glow worms on the ceiling. Had to get to know my camera's ISO settings.. 

Tea shack

Preserved (not fossilized) moa bones. 

Laur withe a New Zealand ladybug! 

Practicing caving at the museum. (Was this an activity for children? We're still not sure)

Little cows on the way to the natural tunnel walk. 

False strawberries. 

We found a cave! 

Dinner at Huhu restaurant in Waitomo

Feb 15 Otamatea Ecovillage!! 

            This morning we arrived at Otamatea ecovillage with Sabine and Wolfgang for our last wwoofing stay. We’ll be here for 9 days until I fly off to Fiji on the 24^th. Ahh!! It’s a beautiful place so far, full of loaded peach, pear, and apple trees! We will be eating a lot of peaches and pears in the next week… They have 3 ducks (that patrol the gardens for slugs and snails), chickens, 2 cows (for meat), and 2 lovely dogs (named Jesse and Lily, aka bucket head since she’s been biting herself lately, poor thing. Jesse dug in the garden with us and munched on 2 baby mice. Yum!). We broke up the potato bed today after a delicious lunch of fresh fluffy bread, AMAZING cheese, AMAZING home kill sausage, garden tomatoes and cucumbers and--OMG WOLFGANG JUST WALKED IN WITH TWO TALL GLASSES OF FRESHLY SQUEEZED PEAR JUICE WE ARE GOING TO DIE OF DELICIOUS HAPPINESS OVERLOAD—sorry, this place is just too magical. Ahem where was I… oh yes really good food and new fruit discoveries yet again! We tried a pepita today, which is like a melony thing: small apple-sized and round with white skin with purple stripes and light yellow flesh that tastes like a melon. In a few minutes we are going to help Wolfgang make pasta for dinner.

            We have our own wwoofer cottage, which is a tall open loft room with our own kitchen and loft bedroom. It’s so bright and sunny! And made of earth. We have our own composting toilet outside (we pee under the trees) and a shower in the workshop/garlic hanging area. Sabine and Wolfgang’s house is also beautiful! It’s made of earth as well, and has big open rooms overlooking the valley and gardens. They have a huge pantry stocked with eggs and preserves and cheese… drool… There are also lots of ponds around here. The perfect place to wrap up my New Zealand trip in paradise…

            Wolfgang taught us how to make pasta, and we had it with a delicious creamy pumpkin curry sauce. We also had white radishes and the most enchanting watermelon radishes. AND we had some beer that they made. Wolfgang suggested we make a food schedule to make German pasta and tortillas to ensure that we make all the food we want to in our short stay here.

Sunday

Today was our day off, so we had a pancake breakfast with whipped cream, honeycomb, and peaches and pears! Then we had coffee, then went on a walk around the peninsula to put out some possum bait. We found some rat skulls that I’m gonna see if I can smuggle back to Canada. My chances of all my stuff making it back to Canada are becoming slimmer and slimmer as I collect more and more feathers, skulls and teeth… I’ll see what I can do.

Then we went to a beautiful sandy beach with huge sand dunes and cool shells. We stopped to get some local ice cream on the way. It was a lovely drive through farmland. Sabine and Wolfgang are TOO NICE!! We are already plotting how we are going to come back and live here.

We are haymaking tomorrow, which should be interesting since I’m a weakling and it involves 200-300 lb hay bales. Hopefully I will come back with lots of muscles. In any case, we will celebrate with home brew after it’s done!