We couldn’t resist the special offer of $500 round trip tickets for flying on 9/11/02, from Los Angeles to Auckland, New Zealand.  With no reservations other than a rental car, Mare and I arrived in Auckland at 7:00am on Friday the 13^th.  It seemed natural that our first stop included floating through a dark cave on an inner tube. For $65 US, we both received a wet suit, rubber boots and gloves, a miner’s hard hat with attached light, and an inflated inner tube, or “Cave Raft.”  The “Tumu Tumu Tubing Tour,” took eight of us into the cave entrance, where acclimated to the underground while we sat in a circle surrounding a rushing stream.  Our guides, Pop and Logan, explained how to sit and lay flat in the tube.  Pop said, “I love the glow worms.  It amazes each time.”

     Our rubber boots provided stable footing on the water-slicked rocks under the rushing stream, as we hiked deeper into the earth dodging stalactites and stalagmites. When the stream deepened, we sat in our tubes and floated with the current, and lie flat in some areas where the hard hat sometimes scraped the roughened limestone ceiling.  Lying flat also permitted the ice cold water into the back of the wet suit.  The eels were plentiful, harmless, and the only fish that lived in the dark, underground stream.   

     We floated into a wide-open area where we turned-off our miner lights.  In the pitch black, the entire circular ceiling glowed with millions of white dots, as if we were lying outside at night and looking up at a starry sky.   These glowworms are larvae that light up during their nine-month life, while they efficiently digest food.  The glow draws insects, for these meat eaters to trap with their sticky thin threads.

     We floated a while longer and held onto each other’s feet under our arm pits, forming a long eel-like train snaking through the underground cavern. After marveling several more times at the millions of glowworms, the three-hour journey came to an end too soon.    

     Many travelers call New Zealand the land of adrenaline rushes.  After Bungy jumping, riding a helicopter to a glacier, flying a four-seat plane to a volcano, and boating in fjords, I must agree.  It is also inexpensive, friendly, and lush. 

 

 (Ron Mitchell is a free lance author. His articles appear in many national publications. This article was previously published in the Arizona Republic. Ron and Marilyn enjoy life and travel and have way too much fun for any one couple. You will meet them on our trip to Egypt.)