Huka Falls & Waitomo caves

A short account today as we're a couple of days behind and the camera wasn't up to the wonderful sights of Wautoma caves yesterday on our way from Rotorua to New Plymouth.  Starting with the falls, these are just below Lake Taupo which is NZ's largest lake and feeds NZ's longest river the Waikato.  The lake empties through a narrow rock channel at a rate of 5 Olympic swimming pools per minutes (the Kiwi information boards are very good and describe things in terms of Olympic swimming pools rather than London buses).  For those of you who don't swim, that's an awful lot of water and again the photos don't convey the impressive nature of the feature.

 Yesterday we left the generous hospitality of the Sutton household for the west coast taking in the Wautoma caves on the way. These are in a limestone outcrop amidst all the volcanic rocks that form most of the area.  They are renowned for their glow worms which of course you have to see in the dark.  Hence the lack of photos as the little instamatic, although pretty good, just isn't sophisticated enough.  We did manage to get a picture of the trails which hang down from the worms to catch their prey of insects.

 

I will have to cheat with the trip down the underground river by rubber dinghy and show you the picture from the company's website.  It's actually even more magical than shown as you're in complete darkness apart from the glow worm light.

 

 

 The second cave we went down was dry and home to a large range of stalactites and stalagmites and other fascinating limestone features.

 

 

 

 

A veritable geographer/geologist's paradise. No wonder Aberystwyth University now choose to come here on field trips.  Had to make do with The Wrekin and Wenlock Edge in my day!