New Zealand - North Island - Auckland to Waitomo - Day 3
December 19, 2005

Up bright and early to hit the road to Waitomo, roughly a 2 hour and 45 minute drive south of Auckland. We stopped on the way at Otorohanga to visit the Kiwi House, a bird sanctuary which should be renamed "A crap load of other birds and 2 Kiwi's House". Rain started setting in as we progressed to Waitomo and by the time we reached our accommodation at Juno Hall Backpackers it was well and truly pouring. We had a quick look at our first room with an ensuite on the trip and put on the slicks as we took off again for our cave tours.

We had a bit of time to kill so we stopped in at the Angora Rabbit Shearing Shed. Here we met a strange over informative Kiwi woman who told us that the buildings and facilities for the glowworm caves had burnt down completely just 3 days prior, and that the caves had only just been reopened for tours that day. "They think it was arson" she half whispered to us.


Otorohanga Kiwi House
Kiwis are much larger than I thought they were
The conversation eventually moved on to the angora rabbits and it was then she told us about the possum problem in New Zealand after I pointed out some of the possum fur and hybrid rabbit/sheep/possum wool items for sale in the shed's shop. The native Australian possums were introduced years ago and now are a huge problem in New Zealand with an estimated 70 million over both islands causing major problems for the native vegetation and fauna. We saw hundreds of them squished on the road during the trip ourselves.

We actually walked in as they were just finishing shearing one of the rabbits and saw it stretched out length ways on something resembling a torture rack. Shaved ("not shaved, they're actually sheared" this woman would say) they don't look much different to a regular rabbit, it wasn't until they brought out a before specimen that we saw what they really looked like...a big ball of fluff.


An Angora Rabbit
Satan comes in many forms.
We managed to escape from the shearing shed by distracting the woman with an elaborate plan which I won't go into, let's just say it involved duct tape, flashing lights, loud sounds and a bottle of chloroform. Upon arriving at the Aranui Caves we met our tour guide and discovered that we were to be the only 2 people on the tour. With our own private tour guide we wandered the caves at our own pace and took a ton of photos which didn't turn out and generally admired the stalagmites, stalactites and various strange formations as we chatted to the tour guide about real estate prices in Brisbane.

Moving on we arrived at the Glowworm Caves and saw the big black patch of ground where the office, cafe and souvenir shop once stood. We entered the cave with our large Maori tour guide with a strange over-pronunciated way of talking and had a brief tour on foot through the caves which appeared much larger in height and width in some places than the Aranui Caves. Working our way down, we jumped in a little boat and slowly cruised through the underground river to see the thousands of glowworms (which are actually fly larvae) above us, the river exited the caves back near where the now burnt down buildings once stood and we made a mad dash through the rain back to the car.

With the rain showing no sign of easing we went to a local cafe at another hostel for pizza before heading back for a lazy evening in our room at the hostel and early to bed as I felt more symptoms of a flu setting in.


Aranui Caves
Natural habitat of the Angora Rabbit

Posted by WetWired
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