Blackwater rafting and black sand beaches

Last weekend was labour day weekend for us in NZ so we headed south in the Wish called Wanda to explore around Waitomo. The area is known for its limestone/karst formations and extensive network of caves. Waitomo means holes (tomo) formed by water (wai) in Maori. The tomos are the holes that open from the cave to the air above. The tourist industry capitalized on the caves long ago, so there are only a few that are open to the public. The rest require a guide and entrance fee. We decided to take advantage of one of the unique offerings on hand...blackwater rafting. We donned wetsuits and helmets, grabbed an inner tube, and headed into the cave to float down the river. 

ready to go in the cave!

we couldn't take cameras inside the cave,
but this is where we exited the cave

We spent about two hours floating through Ruakuri (two dogs) cave. We got to jump off a couple of waterfalls, squeeze ourselves through some small spaces, and float silently (mostly) through cathedral-like caverns. In my opinion, the best part of the experience was the glow worms that shine like stars from the ceiling of the cave. The "worms" are actually the larvae of the fungus gnat. The larvae use bioluminescence, just like deep sea fish, to attract prey. When insects fly toward the light, they get stuck in sticky strands the glow worms produce. The worms grow for 6-9 months before metamorphosing into the winged insect. The gnat has no mouth so only lives for 48 hours...long enough to reproduce and lay eggs for the next round of glow worms.  

These are the sticky strands the glow worms make to catch bugs

After our rafting trip, we walked along the loop track around the Ruakuri Cave that includes a couple of tunnels and lots of neat rock formations. 

layers of limestone

Pete loves tunnels

New Zealand has a very high diversity of fern species - over 200 different kinds. They are incredibly diverse, and I find them fascinating. Here are a few to give you a sense of how different they can look. 

drooping filmy fern (I think)

hen and chicks fern

palm-leaf fern

The day after caving, we explored some of the other local geologic features nearby that we could easily access. The first stop was Mangapohue Natural Bridge. We walked through a canyon until we got to the bridge. The whole canyon used to be a cave before the roof caved in long ago. The natural bridge is all that is left of the cave roof. 

swing bridge to the canyon wall

walkway through the natural bridge

the former cave roof

interesting formations on the ceiling
(they are not stalactites because they are formed differently)

on the other side of the bridge, the loop took us
through farmland with more rock formations

some with fossils of 25 million year old oysters

Our second stop was Piripiri cave. This is the only cave that can be accessed for free by the public. Stairs led down in to a big cavern with lots of interesting formations. 

limestone formations - very coral reef like

stalactites galore!

Our third stop was Marokopa Falls, billed as one of the most lovely in NZ. Honestly, I don't know how they judge them...there are too many lovely ones to count! This was definitely worth the stop.

After our geologic tour, we continued down the narrow, winding two-land road to the coast and the village of Marokopa. We were definitely off the beaten path at this point, but the scenery was spectacular.

lunch spot in Marokopa

overlooking Marokopa

whitebait (very small fish) trap

From Marokopa, we traveled up and over the mountain to Kiritehere Beach, another black sand beauty.

Caspian Terns making some noise

black sand loveliness

mudstone rock formations on the beach

with distinct iron banding

the whole place was stunning!

Portuguese man o' war jelly on the beach
(the sting from these are supposed to be incredibly painful)

more fossils

some seriously happy cows

The final stop on our tour was the town of Kawhia, another small hamlet along the west coast. We didn't expect to find much there, but they had an art festival on so we saw some art, watched people carve stone and wood sculptures, and enjoyed our estuary-side camp site. 

Maori totem

our camp site for the night

a lovely view across the mudflat

 On our drive back to Auckland along more narrow, windy roads, we had a couple of run-ins with the locals...

Coastal views and baby birds

Last weekend I ventured to the southern edge of the Waitakere Range for a muddy hike with some serious hills, but that also afforded amazing views of the Manukau Harbour entrance and west coast beaches. The kauri trees in the southern part of the Waitaks have been hardest hit by the kauri die-back disease, and it is possible that this section of the park will be closed off to hikers in the near future. The disease spreads very effectively on people's shoes and they have not been able to stop disease transmission, even with shoe cleaning stations on every trail. However, I recently learned that nearly 80% of people don't use the cleaning stations at all. Grr. 

it was a bit muddy...

the kauri tree continually sheds its outer
bark so other plants cannot grow on it

chains for the super steep uphill bits

looking back to where I came from...

and ahead to where I was going

the west coast beaches are stunning!

gorse in the gnarliest and more awful plant growing
in this country, but it makes a nice structure for spiders

looking across the wetland

lovely orchid growing near one
of the four stream crossings

the northern side of the loop was
dominated by nikau palm trees 

only a small waterfall on this trail

the underside of a fern frond loaded with spores

this is a bit of a kauri branch that fell from the tree. The small cones
on the left and near the top of the photo are male and the big one
on the right is female. The male cones release pollen when they
mature, while seeds develop in the female cone after fertilization.

The following day, I had an urban wildlife outing. There is a large pond near our house called Western Springs. There is a tonne of bird life around the pond and babies of all types are abundant right now. The park was filled with people feeding bags and bags of bread to anything that would eat it, which hurt my soul a little bit, but the bird behavior watching was so good that I just had to ignore it. 

pukeko - look at the size of those feet!!

pukeko taking a bath

baby pukeko

female paradise shelduck (putangitangi) and her chicks

lone putangitangi chick

black swan and cygnets

fluffy cygnets

royal spoonbill on the upper right;

pied shags on the left

quite possibly the cutest ugly duckling (coot chick)

coot feeding time

Greylag goose and gosling