Especially popular among tourists for its unique “luminous caves in New Zealand.
For the first time “svetlakova cave began to explore tan Tinorau, the former ruler of the local Maori. Local residents have long known about the existence of unusual caves, which could be reached by water, but never dared to penetrate deep into this mysterious place. But tan Tinorau was dared to rest, and in 1887, along with British scientist Fred Mace on a makeshift raft and with a candle in his hands swam to the cave.
The courage of the explorers was rewarded with a magnificent opening – I rowed a little further inside the caves, they discovered the fantastic beauty of the Grotto of Fireflies. Bizarre limestone formations of the vaults were entirely covered with tiny luminous dots that shimmered beautifully in the dark. The discoverers of the grotto’ve been back here, to better understand his discovery, resulting over time was also found the upper entrance to the cave, which now is the main.
In 1889 the Cave of Waitomo has become available to tourists, and the management of this case was hand-made by tan Tinorau. Along with his wife, Ooty, he conducted tours for a small fee for everyone, thus organizing a small family business. However, in 1906, the cave administration was taken over by the government, but the local people are actively employed in the service sector of this tourist object and receive a small percentage of the profits.
Once on the site of present-day caves hosted the ocean. The water here has created the mysterious intricacies of the tunnels and grottoes.Bizarre growths on the walls is limestone and the remains of marine organisms – corals, sea shells, skeletons of sea fish.
When the water receded, in underground caves the caves began to form conditions ideal habitat for unique organisms – Arachnocampa Luminosa, fungal gnats, or fireflies.
Some researchers believe that the glowworms in the Waitomo caves glow from hunger. And the hungrier the glowworm, the more brightly it will glow. Light they lure into their network traps a variety of insects. By the way, the silk network, you can even see if being close to them.
However, there is another point of view. According to her the fireflies feed on spores of fungi, which does not need to lure. Therefore, the glow is just a kind of decoration peculiar cave worms.
The cave complex consists of Waitomo caves glowworms Waitomo (Waitomo Glowworm Cave), caves Aranui (Aranui), caves Ruakuri (Ruakuri) and Gardner gat (Gardner”s Gut). In the caves in addition to fireflies, you can see the stunning stalactites and stalagmites, some of which reaches several meters in length. Total system Waitomo includes about 150 caves.
