Steadfast Conviction: Glow Worm Caves

I was looking to crawl around in some caves, and maybe see a glow worm or two (not really worms as I now know). I booked a trip with Underworld Adventures for a 4 hr adventure through a cave system, ending with tubing through the glow worm cave tunnels. There were two English travelers in my group, and one great guide full of knowledge. We started by suiting up in heavy, thick, HOT, wetsuits and took a little train into the mountains. This was also where The Lost World was filmed, so I was pretty excited.

We snapped a few photos then hiked up the side of the mountain to the top entrance of the cave.

The Adventure Crew

Adventure Crew gets down

At the cave entrance

Into and down into the mountain we went. Shimming through some tight spots, and also got to see some places most groups don't get to go since there were only three of us yay!

Cave rock in the light

Stalactites

Second larger entrance to the cave

Ahhh jaws

Then we got to the lower levels of the cave where we jumped into our tubes. I asked if there were eels, and my guide didn't exactly answer me...
Once we were all on our tubes, we extinguished our torches and the guide lead us down though the cave system. All at once, we came through a narrow squeeze, and the ceiling opened up to a massive cavern. The entire top of the room was covered in what looked like millions of tiny blue lights. It was AMAZING! This is one of, if not the most amazing thing I have seen in New Zealand. It looked like the brilliant night sky on one of those camping trips you take, far far away from any light of any city, and as we floated through the tunnels into more large caves, there were more and more everywhere you looked. We oooed and awwwwwed our way through to the cave exit. I could have floated through 100 times and still want to see it again.