Day 16 - bugs and birds

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after the worst night of the trip, we headed in to waitomo to see more bugs. glow worms, in fact. well, actually they should be called glow-maggots, since they're the larval stage of the a type of fungus gnat.

deja too the black water tour offered by our hosts the night before. basically they put you in a wetsuit and an inner tube, then send you through the maze of rapids running through the various cave systems.

kev and i opted for the much cheaper, and cleaner guided tour and walk to the glow worm caves. we took the "spellbound" tour, an eco-friendly group of operators who oversee two cave systems on a private piece of farm land. it's actually quite spectacular down there, seeing the glowworms. and it's amazing how much light they actually give off. we went through a large portion of the caves without needing our headlamps. although i did catch a rocky outcropping in the face while we were on the raft.

after meeting back with dej we headed back to otorahanga to see the kiwis at the bird reserve. they artificially flip night and day so that visitors can see the nocturnal birds feeding. the two varieties we saw there were the basketball sized brown kiwi and spotted kiwi. they're remarkably cute birds.

after that we headed back on the road toward tongariro national park, and pulled in to a little motel in the early evening. while the unit was very clean and tidy, the host was a peculiar little man who wanted to make absolutely sure we weren't going to cook any smelly food in our room. now i know how people feel when i make them wear booties at my place...

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