Day 80: 20231212 Tuesday, December 12, 2023 Bay of Islands
The familiar sight of the Waitanga Treaty Grounds flag pole in the distance greeted us as we opened our curtains. Heavy cloud cover belied the weather forecast for a rainless day with high temperatures in the mid 70’s. The whine of motors lowering the tenders into the water got us up before our alarm clocks.
After a quick breakfast in the room we headed out for our excursion on the Bay of Islands in the Northland region of the North Island. When Janet and Ben arrived here on the Grand Princess over a month ago, we toured the Waitanga Treaty Grounds. Today, we will visit a Glow Worm Cave and Kauri Forest with Price and Ciara.
As the tenders approached the marina, it was apparent that the Pahutakawa New Zealand Christmas trees which line the shores of Pahia were mostly in full bloom. The bright red flowers fill the dark green trees like Christmas decorations. The locals say it’s very convenient to have Christmas trees that decorate themselves just in time for Christmas, and then put themselves away after Boxing Day.
Our tour guide/driver was very friendly and even sang us a welcome song over the bus PA system. He knew a lot about the area and was happy to share all sorts of details and stories as he drove us past the tiny town of Pahia and into the countryside. Our destination was the Waiomio Glow Worm Caves. It is on property settled by Māori over 370 years ago. Legend has it that the caves were discovered when someone noticed smoke coming from a cave entrance and discovered a woman living in the cave who had run away from a neighboring tribe. The current owners are direct descendants of that tribe. Although the North Island’s geography is dominated by volcanic features, there is a large outcropping of limestone on this property which contains the caves. The tours have been a family operation since the 1950’s and is a busy place. There were multiple ship tours that included these glow worm caves as one of the stops. No photography or video is allowed in the caves, which the Māori treat as a sacred location.
Our tour group was about 30 people, which was a large tour group for this cave. There is a boardwalk covering about 80% of the part of the cave we toured. When a group of that size lines up single file, it is a very long distance from the front of the group to the back, so narration was difficulty, although the young Māori gal who was our guide managed to do a decent job by talking forward and backward with a loud and clear voice. There were several times when our group would all have to press against the left handrail to let an exiting tour group pass on the right.
The limestone formations are not all that well preserved, but are still alive. In one place, you could see someone had carved steps into a flowstone formation to access a shelf above. There is a stream running at base of the cave which is essential for the presence and maintenance of the glow worm population.
Hand lanterns were distributed to about every 8th person in line as we walked into the cave in single file. There were a few twists and turns in the cave leading into the first glow worm viewing chamber which was probably 150’ from the cave entrance. When all the lanterns were turned off, we could see the glow worms forming constellations of stars high above us on the ceiling of the cave, which was between 15 and 30’ high. Our guide explained the life cycle of these glow worms and the geology of the limestone caves. It’s a pretty tough life. The adult glow worm fly only exists to breed quickly and lay a clutch of 30-50 eggs on the ceiling of a suitable cave, and has to do so quickly because it is born without a digestive tract. It lives for a matter of days and then dies after mating and laying eggs. The first or most vigorous larva that hatches out of the clutch of eggs then eats it’s neighbors and then begins a year long career of fishing for flying insects in the caves with long threads of sticky saliva using bioluminescence within it’s body as a lure. Insects hatching from the stream below see the glow worms above as stars so they fly upward and get ensnared in the fishing lines set by the glow worms.
The visual effect is quite enchanting. It takes a while for our eyes to adjust to the darkness, but the effect of a starry night sky is remarkable overhead in the cave.
We walked another 50-60’ deeper into the cave to another smaller chamber where the glow worms are closer to the catwalk, and it is remarkable how bright some of the worms are when they are less than 3-4’ away. In the darkness of the caves, it’s impossible to make out exactly what the glow worms actually look like up close. Even photographs of them don’t seem to reveal much more than a tiny worm like creature with no recognizable features. This was the third time Janet and I have seen glow worms, and we still feel like viewing them is an experience not to miss out on if you ever have an opportunity to see for yourself. The Waitomo cave tour experience was the best by far. We rode inside boats in the caves which were larger and the effect of the stars was magical in the larger caverns. But the Waitomo glow worm caves were a 3-4 hour drive from Auckland one way. These caves were less than an hour’s drive from the marina where the cruise ship tenders docked.
Our next stop was the village of Kawakawa, famous for public toilets designed by Austrian born Fredensreich Hundertwasser, who is an internationally renown architect and environmental activist. The Hundertwasser Toilets is the only project designed by Hundertwasser in the southern hemisphere, and it was the last project completed during his lifetime.
The bus then took us to the Manginangina Kauri Walk. This was a short walk on an elevated boardwalk into a grove of ancient Kauri trees. There was no shoe disinfecting station because the entire walk was on elevated boardwalk to keep our feet off the tree roots. There was a guide who Janet and one other woman who is also hard of hearing got to stick to her side for the narration because like in the glow worm cave, our group was spread out over nearly 75’ so most of the group couldn’t hear most of the narrative even though the guide wore an amplifier on her belt. It was a good thing we have done other Kauri forest walks on this trip because most of the plants were the same, but this particular stand of Kauri trees was impressive in the number of intact trees and the size of some of the trees which were estimated to be over 1000 years old. We also saw Kauri gum on some of the trees and learned about how this was a valuable commodity used for varnishes and other uses when Kauri were more plentiful.
Price and Janet got off the bus and boarded the tenders to get back on the ship for lunch and premium dessert sundaes. Ben and Ciara rode the bus into Pahia and walked through the town and then back to the tenders along the shoreline to get the most of their last few hours in New Zealand.
There were bottle nosed dolphins playing in the wake of the Pilot boat as we headed out of the Bay of Islands.
We finished watching the Barbie Movie in our staterooms and then had dinner at the Ocean Terrace Sushi restaurant. It wasn’t really set up for seated table dining so we sat at the sushi bar and had the set menu which included a variety of sushi and sides which made for a pretty filling and fancy dinner.
The Princess Theater featured vocalist Danielle Matthews who did a Shirley Bassey tribute. She was a very powerful and talented singer who put on an energetic and entertaining show.
Tomorrow will be spent crossing the Tasman Sea as the ship heads back to Sydney for the end of our cruise. The dreaded luggage tags will probably be delivered to our staterooms tomorrow officially announcing the end of our cruise is near. We did receive an invitation to dine with the ship’s officers at lunch tomorrow from the Hotel General Manager as a consolation for our being stranded in Blemheim and missing out on Tauranga. That will be another first for us.
