Waitomo Caves and the Otorohanga Kiwi Conservatory in New Zealand

On yet another day trip from Lake Taupo during over December vacation in New Zealand, we drove north east to Waitomo. It was a very scenic drive with windy roads and sheep everywhere.

Well, if there were three common themes in our trip it was 

a. Fast moving clouds like you would not believe

b. Sheep that will put you to sleep when you try counting them during the drive

c. Scenic views that are unmatched

At Waitomo, they have a one of a kind cave system which is home to a glow worm that lives on the cave ceilings. It is pitch dark as we go through the caves in a small boat and if lucky the ceiling lights up with millions of light blue dots.  

We were lucky and got to see this. The staff were not friendly. We specifically asked them if a 1 1/2 old baby was okay on the boat and they said fine and sold us tickets. When it was time to board the boat, the guy stopped us saying the baby was too small and will make a noise that will scare the worms. We told him that the baby was a well behaved baby and went on the boat. For her part, the baby was well behaved.. and she would call out her mom's name in a shrill voice. We did not see that one coming. The worms were fine and did their display for us.

We came out from absolute darkness to bright sunlight and it took us all a few minutes to realize what was going on when the guy was trying to get us off the boat!

It was 90 minutes of waiting for a 5 minute boat ride to see a one of a kind experience. Fortunately, Mr. Disney had trained us well for such experiences over the last 15 years!

We finished a quick lunch at the outdoor cafeteria and headed on to see the Otorohanga Kiwi conservatory, which also is an avaiary that houses rare birds of New Zealand. There were three kiwi birds that are in the extremely endangered category and they seemed healthy and large, large gray fur balls that came up to our knees. They were in a glass enclosure which was dark. There was no photography allowed. We did see the birds and go "wow". They were very unique and we all felt sad for the bird that was most likely not going to make it.

Here are some pictures of the other creatures we saw while walking through the convervatory.

We saw the Kea which was once found everywhere and is now a rare bird.. guess that is what happens if you start eating sheep in New Zealand! 

We also spotted a lizard that looked like a dragon while wandering through the other displays and it had a peculiaar blue and green thing on its size. So I zoomed in and took a picture. When processing the image last week, saw that it was actually PLASTIC BEADS! Someone had done an Afro style beading job on the poor lizzard and let it out there! So much for us not messing with nature. 

It is a good 2 1/2 hour drive to Waitomo from Taupo. You are better off visiting from Auckland. Still we enjoyed the day and had a lot of fun. We drove through a city that claimed to be the "shearing capital of the world" and they even had a giant statue of a guy shearing sheep. This must have been at least 30 foot tall. 

New Zealand is a truly wonderful place and you get to see things that are far from run of the mill. Would strongly recommend a trip to Waitomo. If you have small kids who cannot keep quiet during a dark damp boat ride though, you may want to wait a while..