The Trek to the Glow Worms

A morning flight to Queenstown, and we were off to the car rental place.



A few hours of driving through sheep...




...and we'd arrived in Te Anau.



We dropped off our bags at the hotel, and went straight to the ferry for the Glow Worm tour.



It was a bit if a wait at the ferry terminal, but fortunately there was some quality reading material:



As the ferry left, it began to get dark. Not dark enough to hide the fact that I still need a haircut.



Since the glow worms are in a cave, the dark didn't matter much.



These inch-long worms are interesting creatures. They are spider-like in that their primary food source is insects which they ensnare, not in a web, but in droplets of mucus hanging from the ceiling.



No photos were allowed inside the cave, so I was carrying the camera for nothing.




Luckily Ming didn't realize that applied to the entrance as well, where the rule is enforced not to protect the worms, but the $40 photo scam the guides have going there. These photo tourist traps are everywhere, but this one was particularly egregious.



We shuffled along planks for fifteen minutes. When done in a cave, I'm told it's called "shufplanking". Then we got in a boat on the underground river in the pitch black. The guide pulled us along a chain attached to the wall and pretty soon constellations came into view. These constellations weren't stars, though; they were worms.

Actually, we could really only see the rear-end of each worm, which was glowing to attract insects towards their demise. There were probably a couple thousand in total. Many were actually within reach, but I can't imagine what would compel anyone to reach into a glowing mass of worms and mucus. Still we were warned against it.

We spent twenty minutes in the boat under the worm-stars. Every once in a while a drop of liquid would splash my face as I stared into the black, leaving me wondering whether the source was condensation or if one of the glowing blue spots overhead got a little careless with it's mucus.

There wasn't much more to the tour since we weren't lucky enough to see one of the eels that makes its way into the underground river. Since we also didn't see any of the huge daddy-long-legs-esque spiders, I'm calling this a draw. We rode the ferry back and after some blogging, it was time for bed.

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Location:Te Anau, New Zealand