Stars Above the Water: Waitomo Caves, New Zealand
Allow me to speak for a moment with total authenticity: the Waitomo Cave in New Zealand is, to this day, the most exquisite, special, and moving moment of my entire life. I didn’t take any photos, so I’ll leave you with my words.
When we visited New Zealand during our honeymoon in December 2017, I had one major thing on the brain: Hobbiton. And don’t get me wrong–Hobbiton was incredible, and I have always dreamed of seeing it. But it was nothing compared to what I saw in Waitomo, which absolutely deserves its own post.
Waitomo is a small town about an hour and a half west of Matamata, where Hobbiton is located in the North Island of New Zealand. We drove there immediately after our Lord of the Rings tour, all because Matt basically begged me to see “the famous Waitomo caves.” Waitomo, apparently, is known for its glowworm caves, which you can access via boat tours. As we were planning our trip, Matt kept obsessively showing me photos of people in tiny rowboats inside dark caves, and above their heads shone thousands of tiny blue lights—glowworms. I agreed to visit the caves because it looked cool, but I really didn’t think anything more of it.
When we got to Waitomo, Matt and I headed straight to the cave for our 45-minute tour (and yes, due to the remoteness of this part of the North Island, we decided to spend an entire day and night in Waitomo for Matt’s glowworms). Our tour guide immediately greeted us with a traditional Maori greeting—Kia Ora (hello!)—and proceeded to tell us that he and 90% of the other tour guides at Waitomo were direct descendants of the indigenous Polynesian people, the Maori, that had originally founded the cave system in 1889. Our tour guide was altogether hilarious, warm, and respectful. He warned us several times that we were not allowed, under any circumstances, to take photos inside the cave, which I considered a major disappointment. How was I supposed to share my experience otherwise?
Our guide led us through the cave system on a walking tour for about half an hour, describing the founding of the cave in the late 1800s, the lifecycle of a glowworm, and the formations we saw inside the cave (stalactites and stalagmites). As we stood beside a four-foot-tall stalagmite shooting up from the ground, he explained that it takes 500 years for stalagmites to grow even half an inch. I was impressed–this stalagmite beside us was very old.
Then he led us further inside the cave, to the “cathedral,” which is the highest point of the cave. Our guide explained that, combined with the incredibly high ceilings, the cave’s porous limestone foundations create a perfect place for music because there is no echo. He then asked if there was anyone willing to sing to us, and everyone went dead silent. Finally a little girl piped up and asked him, “why don’t you sing for us?”
Our guide was too embarrassed to sing, he said, so he needed complete darkness in order to perform in front of us. He shut out all of the artificial lights in the cave, and our surroundings fell totally pitch-black. Then he raised his voice and belted a traditional Maori song, filling the chamber with ancient words, verses, and music for several long, beautiful minutes. I felt tears prick my eyes, unexpectedly moved by these moments in the cathedral.
When the lights returned, we all blinked at each other, surprised. It felt like waking from a trance. Our guide quietly led us to our boat, warning us to stay absolutely silent so that the glowworms didn’t get frightened by our voices and shut out their lights. In silence, Matt and I sank into a small boat, surrounded by total cave-blackness and cave-silence, and our guide pulled us slowly, creepingly through the halls of the cave.
During the first few seconds of our boat journey, we could only spot tiny pin pricks of blue light every now and then against the cave walls or directly above our heads, but that was all. As the boat made its way through the system, the only sound we heard was the faint slosh of water against the sides of the boat and the occasional drip of water.
As we floated along, two water droplets hit my cheek and shoulder, which I considered quite fortuitous (our guide had explained that the Maori consider it very, very special to be touched by the cave droplets, since the cave water is ancient and sacred, taking hundreds and hundreds of years to seep through the rock formations. He explained that one drop of water might travels for centuries through the rocks before it drips out into the cave).
It was just moments later that we entered a mighty and massive antechamber in the caves, and finally caught sight of the full spectrum of glowworms for the first time.
They were the titiwai, or “stars above the waters,” as the Maori call them. Seeing the titiwai felt like lying on the grass on a pitch-black night in the middle of nowhere, staring up at the stars above. The glowworms formed a galaxy over my head, with millions—literally millions—of blue lights surrounding us. I felt a wave of emotion heave up in my chest, and tears unexpectedly fell down my cheeks. It was genuinely the most moving and beautiful thing I’d ever witnessed. Something about the combination of darkness, the universe of lights, the dead silence, the Maori song still ringing in my head, and the ten minutes of sensory deprivation made my head spin and then go blank. All I knew was the way the lights made me feel: connected to God, to nature, to the ancient walls around me, to the prayers of the Maori people, and to the small, tiny insects above me.
When we disembarked outside the cave, I had to flee from the group and hide in a bathroom to recover from these waves of emotion. Since pictures of the glowworms are absolutely forbidden, I’ve attached a link to the official Waitomo Caves website here.
The restaurant where I cried with joy for half an hour after experiencing the glowworms
