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Waitomo Caves, New Zealand.
Browsing through the many brochures offering different sightings of glow worms in different caves we decided to go with the company featured in the recent series on the BBC, life, which was visited by the one and only Sir David Attenborough.
We took a scenic drive through the hills, dotted with hundreds of sheep to the cave entrance where we were equipped with a hard hat, torch and given the general safety rules, we were going into a cave after all.
We all followed Joe our guide in to the cave and we suddenly plunged into darkness until 12 torches on cue flicked on. The cave was dark, wet and very cold but not five minutes in we were told to turn off our torches and in the distance we could see GLOWWORMS! It was amazing, they looked like tiny green stars.
As our eyes adjusted to the darkness we saw more and more glow worms, the tiny amount we saw at that moment would have been worth it, then we boarded the small boat.
We spent twenty minutes going up and down the small river in the cave, but we were not alone just above us were thousands of glow worms. As we moved up and down in the darkness more and more seemed to appear, it was as if the darkest of skies on the clearest nights had been dragged to just a few feet away from us. We went back and forth up and down the same small river and not one person (including children) started to get restless, silently in the darkness everyone just gazed above them at the wonderous beauty above us.
The moment we turned our torches on, gone, no more lights twinkling before us, just the translucent beads hanging from the cave walls and ceiling.
We left the cave and headed to another cave with not so many glow worms but with the most spectacular rock formations (check facebook photos). At one point we could even see the sky, these holes in the cave a called sink holes, they’re very dangerous as in the past farm animals have fallen into the cave and died, there are still many bones there today.
This was our glow worm experience and in one word it was ... AMAZING!
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