Night Tour

The observant among you may have noticed that I’ve been spending quite a lot of time at Zealandia over the last few months. In fact, since doing a number of training sessions in August and September last year, I have been a volunteer guide at the sanctuary, working at weekends. This involves helping people out around the sanctuary, pointing out the wildlife (which some people walk right past without noticing), feeding some of the birds, and also giving short talks on various subjects around the valley. 

As summer moves into autumn, one of the events at Zealandia is an Open Weekend. This allows Wellingtonians to visit the sanctuary for a measly $2 per person instead of the usual cost of a 2-day pass, $19.50. Which is still a bargain, by the way. But Wellingtonians love a freebie, and there is a positive stampede on this weekend. Naturally, they need as much help as possible, and so all volunteers and other staff are roped in to help. As a reward for this, they offer a free night tour to volunteers.

On a windy Wednesday evening, therefore, Nicola and I arrived at the Visitor Centre at the allotted time of 4:45pm. They actually start the tour in the dusky twilight as there are some crepuscular creatures to be seen. At the beginning there is a health-and-safety briefing, then we’re kitted out with earpieces and red-light torches (which don’t disturb night-time animals). Before we set out we’re subjected to the Zealandia film, which is basically a guilt-trip about all the damage done by humans to New Zealand since arrival, but culminates on an upbeat note with the building of Zealandia and the release of native species within.

There are six of us on the tour – one couple from Auckland, one visiting from the USA, and us. The tour is led by Katie, who does all the talking, and assisted by Julie, who scouts out ahead, looking for kiwi. Kiwi are the main attraction and objective of the night tour; they are nocturnal so, despite being in the valley in reasonable numbers (130 is the current estimate), they’re not seen by the public on a general admittance ticket. Indeed, I’m often asked where they are when I’m working during the day, and explain that you’ll need to come on a night tour to see them. Some species of kiwi are still found in the wild in remote areas of New Zealand, but the species we have at Zealandia, little spotted kiwi, are only found in reserves and on predator-free islands. They owe their existence to a far-sighted conservationist, who transferred five birds to Kapiti Island in 1912. The species was already extinct on the mainland, and shortly afterwards became extinct on all other islands. Since the 1980s populations have been established on other offshore islands, and in Zealandia.

Kiwi are supposed to be nocturnal. This one didn't get the memo.

Katie led us on the usual tour along the Lake Road, down to see the takahe, and through the jungly Te Mahanga track, where we saw cave weta, glow worms, and heard the night-time activities of kaka. But no kiwi. We could hear them calling in the distance, but couldn’t see any. At this point, Julie left our group to go and scout for kiwi in likely locations. And it was as we walked back along the Lake Road, with Katie giving us some further information on something or other, that she was interrupted by a call on the radio. Kiwi ahead! We strode purposefully forward as quickly as possible without making a noise, and sure enough, foraging on the cliff by the side of the road, was a little spotted kiwi! Despite being highlighted by Julie’s red light, it seems unconcerned by our presence, and continued snuffling through the leaf litter and undergrowth, in search of worms, beetles and other inveterate invertebrates, for around five minutes.

So we saw a kiwi in the wild! Mission accomplished, we headed back to the Visitor Centre for a cup of kawakawa tea, returned our equipment, and headed back home.

Waitomo Caves

It’s Sunday, and Sunday means Black Water Rafting. This sounds a lot like white water rafting…but in the dark! How crazy is that? Actually, it’s nothing like white water rafting, and involves nothing more strenuous than gently bobbing through a cave in an inner tube. Phew!

On the way we stopped to see a tree. This is the largest totara tree in New Zealand, and therefore the world and, presumably, the universe (I'm prepared to believe there are larger ones in the multiple dimensions of the multiverse). This involved a short walk into the forest, until we reached a tree, surrounded by a fence, with a sign giving its dimensions. It looks like this:

The joy of this particular rafting experience is the glow-worms that live in the cave through which one “rafts” – especially when you turn out your helmet light to be in almost complete darkness.

We drove out early-ish to try and reach the caves in time for the 1:30pm tour that we’d booked with the Legendary Black Water Rafting Company. We’d packed a lunch, which helped with the speed as we only had around 15 minutes to spare, and needed to sign medical disclaimers before they’d let us continue. After that, it was the usual procedure of being given the safety talk, told what equipment and clothing we would be wearing, and getting us into said clothing, including some rather fetching white wellies for the ladies (Ian and I had rather more manly black boots). We then drove out to the start, and were issued with an inner tube commensurate to our size, to ensure that you’re not unstable when floating downstream. The final check was to practice our backwards jumping technique, as this is the way in which you enter the stream and leap over the waterfalls. This was done in the river in the light, so that we knew what we were doing when we came to do it in the dark.

We also practised the “river eel” position (feet up under the oxters of the person in front) so that we could do this when instructed by our guides.

A final walk down to the opening of the cave, where we posed for photos before going underground.

The water level was higher than last time when Nicola and I did this, which was at the end of a long dry summer. We didn’t have too much walking to do, but the guides did tell us that if we came in winter or spring then the water levels would be even higher. We’ll just have to come back again.

Down underground, we floated along, helping ourselves with hands on the walls or paddling to propel us, although there is a bit of a current as well. Along the way we learned about the formation of the caves, the glow-worms. (I switched off at this point, as there’s only so many times I can hear about the life cycle of the glow-worm, and that limit has been reached. Fortunately they kept it brief.) We also met Eric, one of the two resident eels in the river, but no cave wetas.

Towards the end, we were set free to find our own way out in the dark. This we achieved (frankly it would be difficult not to) and we emerged, blinking, into the sunshine.

On the bus on the way back, the guides said, “Hey that wasn’t bad for two guys on their first day!” Oh, how we laughed.

After a quick shower, we then had bagels and tomato soup to warm up, and then headed back to the bach for dinner – chicken and couscous this time, ably abetted by Ian on the barbie.

Black Water Rafting

We drove over to the Waitomo Caves on Sunday to explore the phenomenom that is blackwater rafting. It’s quite a drive from Taupo, so we set out with plenty of time to spare. We stopped off in a small place called Benneydale, which has the dubious distinction of having an English name in the heart of the King Country, where the place names are almost uniformly Maori. There is a reason for this, naturally, and it’s all explained here. We had coffee in an establishment run by a Frenchman of Senegalese extraction, and his Dutch wife. It was odd.

We arrived with plenty of time to spare so, having booked in and signed the statutory waiver that anything that happened to us would be our own stupid fault for indulging in such dangerous pastimes, we were at a bit of a loose end. The girl at the counter suggested we take a walk around the Ruakuri scenic reserve, which is an area of limestone caves and is in fact what sits above the cave that we would be exploring later. Along the way we found a difficult-to-photograph fantail:

After our walk we returned to the blackwater rafting site, where we were fitted out with wetsuits and white gumboots, and then driven to our jumping-off point. We grabbed an inner tube appropriate to our height and girth, and were then drilled in the correct way to enter the water: backwards and arse first, whilst holding one’s flotation device firmly over said arse. Any other method was likely to result in the loss of the inner tube, and as it’s pitch black in the cave, it may be swept away downstream not to be seen again until you reach the end.

Splashdown!

Faceful of water

We then entered the cave. First up we posed for photos with the cave wetas, and then began our journey through the cave system. Some of this was on foot, and some of it in our tubes, having launched ourselves over a waterfall. At one point we needed to form a train by putting our feet up on the ring in front, and being gripped under the armpits, whilst gripping the feet of the person behind us in similar fashion. We switched our head lights off to fully appreciate the glow of the glow worms, and our guides gave us the usual spiel about their life cycle. For the final part of the tour we were told to keep our lights off and find our way out to the daylight by ourselves…something we all managed without too much difficulty. The water level in the cave was quite low, due to the drought which has affected the country over the last month or so – our guide pointed out the level at which the water normally flows.

After climbing out we took the short trip back to the centre for a shower and a warming cup of soup, before heading back to Taupo for dinner at The Brantry. That pretty well ended our Taupo adventure – the next day we drove back to Wellington and what appears to be officially the End Of Summer.

Diet Of Worms

As the weather guess (formerly known as a “forecast”) was for overcast and drizzle all day, we decided to have another crack at the Kawiti glow-worm cave just south of Paihia. Duly equipped with sufficient cash to effect entry, we turned up shortly before midday. There was a tour due to leave in ten minutes, so we waited around doing the crossword.

Our guide told us all about the history of the cave, how it had been discovered 360 years ago by the wife of a Maori chief who had run away and lived there. The caves themselves are classic limestone, with stalactites and stalagmites, formed around 20 million years ago.

Stalactite at the cave entrance

Once inside the cave, the guide led us up to where the glow-worms lived on the ceiling of the cave. They are different from European glowworms, being the larval form of the Arachnocampa luminosa fly, found only in New Zealand and Australia. The larval stage lasts for nine months, then they pupate and an adult fly emerges, which lives about 3 days. When the guide turned off his light, the ceiling of the cave lit up in a scene eerily similar to the night sky. The lights attract other insects, which then get stuck in a network of silk threads that the worms dangle to use to trap their prey.

We couldn’t take pictures inside the cave, so here’s one taken by someone else.

Afterwards, as the weather hadn’t brightened up much, we decided to drive up to Kerikeri, where we had some lunch. Unfortunately Kerikeri doesn’t have much to recommend it, so we headed back to Paihia. On the way we stopped off at a winery that we'd spotted before, Cottle Hill. We tasted and bought some of their products, including a white port.

The drizzle never materialised. The sun came out for a while.