Valley of Waitomo

Visitors touring New Zealand pass through small pleasant towns with their strange mixture of English and Māori names, and countryside probably different from what they expected in South Pacific Islands.

It seems wherever you go here farms edge the road.

This is a way of life some visitors like to have a closer look at.

New Zealanders, especially country folk are friendly people. And the the Waitomo District they welcome overseas tourists.

Early spring is busy time for the Farmer. Lambing has just started.

Travellers come here to see the unusual places but, at Waitomo they can also have the chance to get to know New Zealanders.

Within a few miles these rolling grasslands give way to wilder hill country. Overlooking a scenic reserve ringed by limestone hills stands a hotel, entrance to the valley of Waitomo.

At the Hotel Waitomo there's the added pleasure of being able to entertain new friends and hear more about New Zealand. An offer to be shown some of the up beat places in the valley is a good reason for staying another day.

The valley is warmed by early sun and the road winds into a landscape so different from yesterdays. It's pleasant for a change to make enough time, ease up and not have to rush.

Not far from the hotel are many cool, quite places to stop. There's been a hotel at Waitomo since the turn of the century to give hospitality to travellers who come to this distant New Zealand valley from all over the world.

A short walk away, limestone out crops stub the hillsides. Rocks cracked by frost and sun and shaked by wind and rain. It's the sort of country where caves are found.

After a million years of darkness, light reveals great galleries of fantastic sculpture shapes carved and fashioned by a lost river searching for outlet.

The Waitomo Caves .

Over the ages water seeped through crevices in the limestone. Crevices became holes and holes caves. Until, a river disappeared underground. Dissolving and wearing away as it went the stream changed course and levels many times. Slowly carving out a maze of caverns.

Through time nature decorated the caves as drop by drop rain water slowly drained through the limestone leaving minute deposits. At a rate of about an inch every 300 years Waitomo stalactites and stalagmites have formed.

The Māori people named Waitomo after the river which disappeared into the earth. They never entered the caves fearing a legendary taniwha. The water dwelling monster imagined in it's subterranean depth .

Waitomo visitors are guided under the earth in comfort and safety but the first explorers, Fred Mase and Tane Tinorau had only candles to light the way for their raft as it floated into the earths darkness. Looking up they thought they saw a night sky of stars. What they had discovered was the glow worm grotto. To float down the underground river as galaxies pass silently overhead is the crowning pleasure in the Valley of Waitomo.

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