Finding the Universe

Travel tales, photography and a dash of humor

  • Home
  • Blog
  • Destinations
    • Europe
    • North America
    • Asia
    • Australia
    • Africa and Middle East
    • New Zealand
    • South America
  • Photography
    • Buy Photos
    • Photography Gear Guides
    • Photography Tips
    • Location Guides
  • PHOTO COURSE
  • About Us
    • Hire Us
    • Travel Resources
  • Contact
Home » Destinations » New Zealand » Caves and glow-worms
Finding the Universe contains affiliate links, meaning if you make a purchase through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.

Caves and glow-worms

Last updated: July 8, 2020. Written by Laurence Norah - 4 Comments

Me being me however, the simple option of going somewhere like the Waitomo cave network and having someone guide me round with useful things like safety equipment, maps, waterproof torches and helmets is not what I opted for.

Instead, Vera and I decided we’d pick a rainy day (note: increased risk of flooding) and head to some much nearer caves where we would be nicely on our own, and no-one would be able to help us should we vanish forever into the depths of the earth.

Cave interiorThe caves we chose were the Okupata caves. These are a mere 25km away from where we live, making for a nice easy afternoon out.

Of course, this being New Zealand, those 25km are not covered in nice smooth bitumen. Rather, the caves are located at the wrong end of a 17km single lane dirt road which is mostly used by logging trucks. Logging trucks are not what you want to be encountering on single lane dirt roads.

Still, after a few false turns (the caves are very well hidden it turns out, we only managed to find them because some kindly soul had taken pity on lost travellers and painted signs on trees.. trees which the logging company was doing its best to chop down and hurtle at me on the back of logging trucks…) we did manage to find the caves.

Okupata Cave Entrance One other thing about dirt road driving (I’m going to get to the caves in a moment) – it’s best to ensure your fuel cap is nice and securely on before setting off. Arriving at your destination with the fresh smell of diesel dripping down the side of your van as a result of one or ten jolts too many is not totally cool.

Still, logging trucks, signage and diesel spillages aside, we did finally make it to the caves. It was a good thing we were the only people there, because there was not what could be called a car park. I have no idea at which point a sensible person would have read the omens of the caving expedition as not being fortuitous, but we ploughed on anyway.

The caves were located a five minute walk from the car stopping point, under the canopy of a dripping fern forest. Here the path ended, and a river cascaded down the valley in front of us, disappearing rather ominously into some not entirely huge holes in ground.

Clearly, the idea was that we followed the river into these holes in the ground. With thoughts of Gollum and lost rings swimming around in my head, we set off.

Our lighting situation was not totally ideal – we had one head torch each. It took a while for our eyes to adjust to the faint glimmer that these were giving off, but I have to say, the whole experience was entirely worth it, if somewhat on the risky side.

Glowworms. Try to contain your excitement at the quality of this picture The first part of the caving experience involved climbing down some fairly slippery rocks to where the cave floor levelled out. It was, being largely an underground river, fairly wet. The roof was not that high to start with, although after we had splashed around for a while, it did get high enough to stand up in.

Not too far in, I noticed that much of the ceiling was covered in pimples of eerie green light – we had found ourselves some glowworms! This was exciting stuff. The whole point of caving in New Zealand, as far as I can tell (well, other than the black water rafting, abseiling, stalactites and so on), is to peer at tiny glowing worms. The brighter and greener they glow, the hungrier the poor little chaps are. I figured that there were a lot of hungry worms, because the glow, whilst perhaps not blinding, was still pretty impressive. If hard to photograph, as my effort here demonstrates. National Geographic are unlikely to be contacting me on the basis of that attempt I suspect.

We splashed around for a while, oohing and aahing at the mystical glowing worms and the sounds of gushing water and the general cavy feel of the place. We even found a little underground waterfall. After a while however, the thought of getting lost swum across our minds, plus Vera decided that she might be claustrophobic after all, so we decided to retrace our steps whilst we could remember them, and headed back out to daylight and safety.

Cave entrance and exit and me

This was a really fun experience, especially given that it was free, and I expect I may go back to further explore these caves, perhaps with better lighting equipment. I still intend to go and do the proper Kiwi caving experience at somewhere like Waitomo, because the idea of black water rafting just sounds immense, but for convenience and cost, we were pretty pleased with our afternoon adventure.

Enjoyed this post? Why not share it!

Home » Destinations » New Zealand » Caves and glow-worms

Monthly Giveaway

Don't miss out on our exclusive monthly giveaways with lots of fun travel and photography related prizes! Click here to see our current giveaway and enter!

There are 4 comments on this post

Please scroll to the end to leave a comment

  1. Michael Porritt says

    26th June 2015 at 5:55 pm

    You constantly reinforce my opinion that you are in fact INSANE! {:O) More pictures next time please {;O)

    Reply
  2. Laurence says

    26th June 2015 at 5:55 pm

    Well, thanks! These things always seem sane at the time.. It’s only when
    I look back that I think perhaps they weren’t the wisest! Keep an eye on
    the post, I will be updating it shortly with a few more images, although
    I must say that dark caves are hard to photograph 😉

    Reply
  3. Michael Porritt says

    25th January 2011 at 8:26 pm

    You constantly reinforce my opinion that you are in fact INSANE! {:O) More pictures next time please {;O)

    Reply
    • Laurence says

      26th January 2011 at 12:19 am

      Well, thanks! These things always seem sane at the time.. It’s only when
      I look back that I think perhaps they weren’t the wisest! Keep an eye on
      the post, I will be updating it shortly with a few more images, although
      I must say that dark caves are hard to photograph 😉

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Let me know when there's a reply to my comment (just replies to your comment, no other e-mails, we promise!)

Subscribe to our monthly Newsletter where we share our latest travel news and tips. This also makes you eligible to enter our monthly giveaways!

We only ask for your e-mail so we can verify you are human and if requested notify you of a reply. To do this, we store your data as outlined in our privacy policy. Your e-mail will not be published or used for any other reason other than those outlined above.

About Us

Laurence and Jessica Norah

Hi there! We're Laurence and Jessica Norah. We've been running this site since 2010 as full time professional travel bloggers. We visit all the places we write about personally, and all our content is based on our own first hand travel experiences. We also take all the photos you see on our sites. So grab a drink, dive in, and read on! You can also find out more about us here. Comic included.
Photography course
monthly giveaway
Carbon Neutral Policy

SUBSCRIBE BY E-MAIL

Want to keep up to date with us and our latest travel tips? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter.

Being a subscriber also makes you eligible to enter our monthly travel and photography giveaways!

Thank you!

Please check your e-mail to confirm your sign up.

Affiliate Information

This website contains affiliate links to products and services that generate a small income to us if you choose to use them, at no cost to you. We only recommend products and services that we use ourselves, and will always link to relevant information, regardless of whether or not there is an affiliate program. See our Code of Ethics for more information.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

  • Privacy Policy
  • Copyright
  • Code of Ethics
  • Sitemap
  • About Us
  • Work with us
  • Contact us
  • Blog
  • Destinations
  • Travel Resources
  • Photography Tips
  • Monthly Giveaway
  • Web Stories

© Copyright 2010 - 2021 Finding the Universe®· All Rights Reserved ·
Part of Travel Cats Media Ltd. Registered in England and Wales. Company Number: 11524454.