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Published: January 24th 2010
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Just a quick entry as it was only a quick trip to the caves. We had a couple of couch surfers with us who had been to Abbey Caves (previous entry, different couch surfers!) a couple of times, and wanted to try somewhere different. It had been ages since Colin and I had been to Waipu Caves, so off we went.
Waipu is a small settlement south of Whangarei. It was settled by Scots who had travelled from Scotland to Nova Scotia then on to NZ. Waipu is (more or less) on the coast, and the caves are about 20km inland.
We took a less direct route through farming country, partly as its nicer than driving along SH1, but also to give Doris and Niki a bit of a tiki tour. We were expecting to be the only ones at Waipu Caves, but two other cars turned up as we were getting our boots on. One full of kids running around complaining about the smell of cow pats (you have to walk through a field full of cows and sheep to get to the caves!) There are meant to be about 300m of caves here, but only one main
one (~175m long / deep), and we all went down that!
The cave was much bigger than any at Abbey Caves, almost cavernous in comparison! But still small on the grand scale of caves, and still free.
It seemed to take ages to get to the back of the cave, well, as far as we could go at least. We wandered along behind a guy and his kid (leaving the other noisy kids splashing around near the entrance), clambering over rocks and mud, avoiding the stream as much as we could. The rock formations, the stalactites and stalagmites, were pretty neat, some big and some tiny, and the glow worms - wow! At first there were just a few, but then we went round a corner and they were everywhere. Turning out all the torches turned the cave into, well, something like the milky way I guess, but full of little blue / green specks on light. The pictures we took are a bit better than at abbey caves, of the glow worms, we took very few others. Gives us a good reason to go back again!!
Just past the milky way, we climbed up and over
some mud and rocks into another cavern (the cave is broken into smaller sections by rock falls). It appeared that the only way further was over some slippery rocks. The guy and his boy had gone that way, but thought we might be able tog et round the back or along the stream. We checked out the back of the cave but it was even more slippery. Doris led the way over the rocks, followed by Niki and Colin. Not fancying that much, and not being afraid to get my feet wet, I had a look at the stream. Crouching right down under the rock roof (less than 1m high), I didnt get wet above my knees and took a fraction of the time to get past the rock fall into the next section! Still had to clamber over rocks though ;o)
The same thing happened in the next section. We all clambered over the rocks, sliding in the clay, only to meet the other guy coming back. Round the corner, the passable passage ended in rocks, branches and two giant tractor tyres (flood debris). I went along that last bit first and saw an eel. Colin came next
and saw its tail disappearing. Doris and Niki missed it.
As I was saying, the same thing happened. Working our way back, we found a way through the stream, only ankle deep, to avoid that last climb. Why we cant find these easy routes on the way!!!
We all went back through the stream passage I came through rather than over the rocks, and we all saw the next eel. Neither eel was very big, maybe 30-40cm long, and both took off as soon as we splashed nearby.
And then it was back to the milky way cavern, round a couple of corners and out again. Sorry for the lack of photos, I will make amends and post more somewhere later. Please blow up the glow worm pics - makes them much easier to see, and less like a blank, black picture!
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rosemary neave
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Getting wet feet is the way to go!
Glad you found the stream route - much easier, just a little muckier - would love to print your blog on my breambay.co.nz website - its a great description for beginners to the caves