YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP

Today’s theme encompasses an incredible natural wonder and the character of a tourism-driven small town just about anywhere.

This morning we boarded a bus for the Waitomo cave region (about 100 miles south of Auckland), waitomo being Maori for water hole. We were told that there are about 300 caverns in the limestone around Waitomo. The longest extends for 10 miles. The one we visited is about a mile long, and on the ceiling above the river which flows into and through the cave reside what the brochures call glow worms. These insects are not really worms; they are the larval stage of a fly. In a fascinating adaptation to life in a cave, these larvae lower a sticky strand of web-like material 1 or 2 feet long, and attract mosquitoes, and other insects that come in on the river, with a bluish bioluminescence. When they catch a meal, they just reel it up into their mouths. We took a brief boat ride on the river and in the darkness you can get only in a cavern, the larvae glowed in numbers that made one think of a planetarium, or the overpopulated near-planet starfields favored in sci-fi special effects. What’s more, the water reflected the glow. We were not allowed to capture images of any kind, so this crude description has to suffice for something one has to observe to appreciate.
From Auckland to Waitomo and on to our hotel in Rotarua we rode through farming animal country: cows and horses mostly, but also sheep, goats, ostrich, alpaca, and deer. For lunch we enjoyed a venison burger. It may be that we’ve enjoyed New Zealand venison elsewhere because they mostly export to the USA and Europe.
About half-way from Waitomo to Rotarua we made a rest stop at Tirau. As matter-of-factly as he might describe how to change a tire, our driver explained that Tirau calls itself the corrugated-iron capital of New Zealand, and to demonstrate this distinction their visitors’ information center is constructed of corrugated iron in the shape of a sheepdog. The sheepdog is conveniently located on the main street between a corrugated iron sheep and a corrugated iron shepherd. “The toilets are inside the dog and to the left,” our driver informed us as if that was the location of any toilet worth using.

As we approached Rotarua we drove past several miles of small conical mounds which we were told are plutons—magma chambers which never erupted and solidified in place—which have accumulated volcanic ash and soil. (Half-Dome in Yosemite National Park is a much larger pluton which has been carved by glaciers.) Rotarua is in one of the geothermal fields of the North Island. The town is on the shore of Lake Rotarua, which occupies a caldera and is complete with a dormant volcanic cone near the center of the lake. A block from the hotel is a natural hot mud spa, and we’ve already become accustomed to the sulfur odor.

We are now relaxing and having a drink in the bar area as we blog. We will have a small dinner somewhere nearby and call it an early night since the bus for tomorrow's festivities arrives at 7:30 am. G'night, mates!