Day 24 - Wow! Eeeew! But Wow! again

Te Anau - Queenstown

There is a second, less famous sight to see at Te Anau. A short boat ride across the transparent water of Lake Te Anau links to the Glow worm Caves. This is a journey into a part of a long series of caves that have a rather interesting species of creature inside.

First, you enter the caves and up through a series of paths built over the rushing water. The noise of the water, even at a comparatively low water level is almost deafening as it echoes off the walls. There is an eye-popping cascade of water about halfway up and to be honest, I'm glad it hadn't rained too hard recently as the noise would have been overwhelming.

Eventually you reach a small boat and sit in it very, very quietly. As well as total silence, there is total darkness as the boat is slowly hauled into the cave complex.

The reason for the quiet and dark is that the caves are decorated with thousands of tiny dots of light. The light comes from glowworms, anchored to the cave roof. Together, it looked like a fibre optic Christmas tree. To my mind, it looked like the starriest, clearest night you can imagine, except by some trick of perspective, you can stick your hand out and literally touch the stars.

The lack of outside stimuli really messed with my spatial awareness. If you hold your fingers an inch from your eyes you cannot see them. I know, I tried. The boat we were in took a few bumps on the way around for which our guide apologised saying "the current pulled us into the other boat".

The other boat? Another boat of 14 people out there about two feet from my face and I genuinely couldn't tell they were there. As I climbed out into the light of the cave walkway, I felt slightly dizzy with the disorientation.

As we helped ourselves to tea at the Cavern House, a guide showed a film of what we had just seen. The light comes from thousands of inch-long maggots. They cling to the cave roof and create "fishing lines" of spit which is attached to the roof. These lines catch insects like moths and so on, a bit like a spiders web. The maggot them re-ingests the fishing line and eats the catch from the inside out. The maggots are quite territorial as well, and occasionally fight to dislodge each other from the roof to the water below.

Aren't I glad I watched the film after going into the caves?

On returning to Te Anau, it was time to move on. Our next stop would be Queenstown, centre of all things "adventure" and "extreme".

On arrival we sought out food, finding it at a place called Lucianos. One of those Italian Gangster themed places, though the food was much much better and less cliched than the setting. Possibly one of the best meals I have had in a number of years and preety reasonably priced, too. The table next to us did have a guy who complained about his steak though his attitude made me want to throttle him. One of those who said, and I'm only paraphrasing a bit, "I don't care if the head chef has been cooking this for 2 and a half years, I know what is right and what isn't." Gah.

On the way out, I told the staff how much we had enjoyed our meal. I also recommended that they follow through on the gangster setting and shoot anyone who complains.