Educating Kim: Two More Days: Tuesday and Wednesday, June 13 & 14

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Waitomo Caves

Before going to bed, Jim and I carefully packed our backpacks for our ocean volcano adventure. After a quick dip in the mineral pool and showers, we went to be bed with a planned 5:30 a.m. wake up so we could meet the bus to Whaketane on the Bay of Plenty at 7:15 a.m. When Jim booked the excursion we knew it was a possibility that they could cancel due to a variety of factors. So when we were still sitting at our pickup point at 7:30, we formulated plan be: drive to Waitomo and see the Glow Worm caves. At 8:00 we found out our bus driver had been sitting in a parking lot next to the Holiday Park since 7:15 (at least he was waiting for us). John kindly loaded us into the van and drove back toward Government Garden where there are a slew of hotels to pick up another couple. Along the way he told us we were waiting for a phone call to let us know if the trip was still a go. The call came just before picking up the other passengers; the trip was canceled because of swells. Landing on the island would be tough, so they transferred our trip over to Wednesday and we headed back to the holiday park.

We cleaned up the camper, drank a cup tea, updated Facebook and then typed Waitomo into the GPS and took off. About 30 minutes into the trip, the Dramamine Jim gave me for the boat trip kicked in and I couldn’t keep my eyes open. Don’t tell anyone, but I climbed in the bed in the back and slept the rest of the way there—another hour! Jim pulled into the parking lot at the Glow Worm cave around noon, so we had a fast lunch. Then we climbed up a steep hill to the buy our tickets. A private company operates these four caves. The Crown confiscated the Wiatomo for tourism in the 1880s; in the 1980s the original Maori family who owned the property sued to have the property returned. Today the sites are managed by a private tourism company and loosely overseen by the government. The land will be returned to the family in 2026. My guess is that they will keep maintain the caves as a tourism site. The big draw for this cave is the glowworms that adorn the ceilings and a short boat tour to the original 1880ish cave entry point. No photography was allowed inside the cave to protect tourists from injury. They claim that tourists may slip on the steps if they are not paying attention to where they are walking. However they take your picture at the beginning of the tour and then try to sell it and a CD of cave pictures to you at the end of the tour. We entered the cave with our Maori guide and one other family. The entrance was a natural cave entrance that was widened. The initial passages were a little tight, but the formations were beautiful! Our first stop was an 18m hole. Eighteen meters doesn’t seem like much, so I had to put it into feet and realize it was about 42 feet deep. We descended into the Cathedral Room with 16m high ceilings and only 13 meters below ground. This room has perfect acoustics and many famous New Zealand signers have performed in the room. The little girl from our tour sang a rendition of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” but her voice didn’t carry far. According to our guide, they have weddings and concerts in this room. When she turned off the lights, we could easily see glow worms on the ceiling. Just past the Cathedral we viewed some more beautiful cave formations including the blue glow worms. Only this time she showed us the “tails” that have a poisonous sticky substance on it that catches bugs for the glowworm to eat. It the becomes the glowworm’s cocoon for it’s transformation to a fly. Our final descent was into the blue glow-dotted dark. The sound of lapping water told us we were near the river. We quietly walked down a few stairs and load a boat. The original explorer of Waitomo cave explored the cave on a boat made of flax sticks tied together. The only source of light was a candle. Guided by a clever system of stalactites and ropes and serenaded with a Maori love song, we enjoyed our boat ride by glowworm.

At 2:30 p.m. Holly picked us up for a guided tour of Ruikuri—another cave connected by the Waitomo river. Ruikuri’s claim to fame is its access that descends from a man-made entrance 8 stories via a circular cement pathway. The developers of Ruikuri spent several years trying to find the perfect place to enter the cave without damaging cave features. They blasted through layers of rock and dug out tons of dirt. They also wanted to make sure this cave was accessible to people with disabilities. I walked in fully knowing what the entrance was like, but the lights were off. Holly told us to let our eyes, so I leaned over the railing fully knowing that I’d see each level of the downward spiral. By the time the fourth level was illuminated, I was well and truly scared of how high we were. I began to formulate in my mind my exit and wonder how long I’d have to wait while Jim was in the cave. Bless Holly: she walked a pretty good clip. Between her and prayer, I made it to the bottom, which sported a huge granite boulder with water dripping from above. It is a great illustration of the power of water. The guides at Ruikuri have watched the water erode a soup bowl indentation into the large stone in only a few years. We entered through a tunnel they call the Time Machine because it passes from modernity to the very ancient cave itself. The ceiling sloped to a point at the top, like a cathedral. Walkways for the most part are suspended above the cave floor and sometimes above the cave river. There were many examples of cave features including dramatic cave draperies. Glowworms also dotted the ceilings at regular intervals, sparkling blue in an imaginary sky. We spent a little time above the river watching adventurous souls pass through the cave in wetsuits and tubes. Our guide explained that a new tour would be added to the cave. Adventurous souls in mountain climbing harnesses can tour the cave walls, into the rafters and over a cave waterfall inaccessible by the traditional path. Ruikuri was more pristine that that Wiatomo. The features were more white, the environment more damp. It was obviously a live cave. We reached the bottom most point in the trail only to double time it out of the cave since we were the last tour. That meant my trip back up to the top was fast and painless. On the way out we came to a section where the air temp was several degrees cooler. Holly pointed out that we had reached the line between the tour-owned cave and a section privately owned by the Maori. She explained that the natural entrance was in that direction. However it was discovered that it was tapu to the Maori—sacred. Maori warriors had been buried there. When the original explorer entered there, he lit a fire to warm himself. History continues that the original explorer, his wife, a son and grandson all died by fire as a result of that original explorer lighting a fire in the sacred cave. In respect for Maori tradition, that section of the cave is left untouched.

Once back above ground, she took us back to our car. The 1.5 hour trip back to Rotorua was uneventful. After dinner we soaked in the mineral hot tub and then turned in early.

Wednesday, June 14

Volcano Day!

At 7:15 a.m. sharp we met our driver, John for the trip to Whakatane on the Bay of Plenty. We checked in and were sent across the street to board Pee Jay 4, the boat that took us to White Island and the volcano. There were 27 other guests on board, so it wasn’t very crowded. The sea wasn’t rough and the sky was clear, so we could see steam billowing from the White Island volcano 27 nautical miles away in the Whakatane River where we started.

At the mouth of the bay on a large rock was a sculpture of a Maori girl who was forced to take over rowing the waka, bad tapu according to our guide. Once out in the bay we picked up speed. Far in the distance stationary objects would sometimes evolve into other boats and sometimes into tiny islands. We quickly passed Whale Island. Also a volcano, also overdue to erupt, it looked a little like a whale, I guess. The boat ride was cold and I wondered if I had enough clothes to keep me warm. I snuggled against Jim. The area is a marine reserve and at one point I saw one lonely dolphin swimming with our boat. The eighty-minute trip didn’t seem that long and soon we were anchoring in one of three tiny bays on White Island and receiving our protective gear: a hard hat and a gas mask. The first thing we saw above the rocky shore was the remains of a building. To get there, however, we had to get from our boat in the now choppy bay to a rubber boat and from the rubber boat to the rusted ladder to the cement jetty. There were lots of hands to help and lots of voices shouting directions. Neither of us fell into the bay at either end—I think that was probably divine intervention for me as I’m not exactly graceful. It was scary enough that when I actually made it to dry land, I was quite proud of myself.

We assembled below the old sulphur factory. Our guide told us that acid in the air could make our breathing uncomfortable and if that happen a few breaths in the gas mask would helpful. He also cautioned us to walk in their trail as there thermal mounds about, white piles where the earth was weaker and one might fall through and find themselves breathing poisonous gas as your are boiled in a boiling to death in hot pool. He didn’t have to tell me twice! We started a slow ascent up, stopping frequently at geothermal features. The high point (figuratively and literally) was arriving at the caldera of the volcano and looking down into the recently developed boiling lake in the volcano’s crater. Mountain cliffs rose about 314 feet above the caldera. From there we switched guides and headed back toward the shore.

The caldera of the volcano.

The hard candy they gave us earlier came in handy to help clear the acid in the back of our throats. At one point we stopped at stream and tasted the water. It was very salty and had a high concentration of iron. The island has three bays. The one in the middle had wood beams washed ashore a good twenty feet above the shoreline. Local fishermen claim that waves come in from the Pacific, whip around the point, and come out the other bay. Not hard to believe.

The decrepit sulphur factory bore witness of several landslides. Door frames looked tall enough for an eight year old to pass through, since about a meter of dirt had been washed into the frames.

We washed volcanic ask from our shoes and returned to the boat the same way we came ashore.

They served a great lunch of cheese sandwiches, apples, trail mix, banana chocolate cake/bread, and chocolate covered “hokey pokey” or honeycomb candy. It was delicious but not enough to keep me away on the return trip. Half way through the return voyage, I laid my head on a bench and fell asleep. The return trip to the campground was equally uneventful and we turned in early, amazed that we were so tired.