Glow worm caves and Taupo

We woke up and drove to Taupo today. On our way, we decided to hit up the glow worms caves of Waitomo. I didn't take too many pictures as photography is not permitted in the caves.

On our way to the caves.

We had to take a short walk to enter the cave (Keith pictured below), and once we did, I was completely awestruck! We started with a tour of the cave itself, which was gigantic. I couldn't get over how large the stalactites and stalagmites were, nor how old the cave was...nor, that for the life of me, I can't seem to remember the difference between a stalactite and a stalagmite.

About to head into the cave.

Then, we took a boat cruise of the portion where the glow worms live. I always thought glow worms were just made-up, cartoon-like characters that children play with; I never knew they actually existed! But, they sure do.

We had to be absolutely quiet while viewing the glow worms as apparently noise can cause harm to them. I felt like we were in a dream sequence, getting rowed around in darkness with nothing but the glow worms' light shining through. These aren't my pictures (they belong to photographer Joseph Michael), but they capture a bit of what we saw:


It was truly unlike anything I had ever seen.

Exiting the caves (P.S. As if it's not completely obvious, this commences the no-longer-professional-photographs portion of the blog):


The rest of the day, we spent walking Taupo, which is a cute, little resort town centered around a really pretty lake. The downtown was bigger than I thought it would be, but it was definitely walkable.

For dinner, we landed at the Pita Pit (how authentic, no?), where the following interaction took place.

Employee: What kind of cheese would you like on your sandwich?

Keith: What kind do you have?

Employee: We have feta, provolone, and chidda.

Keith: What was the last one?

Employee: Chidda.

Keith: What's that?

Employee: It's just a basic cheese.

Employee Number 2: (chiming in) You know, it's just...chidda.

Keith: Hmm...never heard of it. I guess I'll give it a try.

I immediately started laughing to myself as "chidda" is simply "cheddar" said in a New Zealand accent. I proceeded to tease Keith about never having heard of cheddar before.

We then headed back to our hostel for the night where we chatted up the manager. He was an American guy who said he was interested in starting up a comedy night. How amazing would it be to come back and actually get paid to perform?

I love Taupo already (and not just because the sign told me to)!