The ChuBaka Life: Waitomo, North Island, NZ

Unfortunately, today our netbook has died on us. Denise is livid that our brand new netbook died before we were even able to make one post on it, and Corey had to hide it out of her sight so that she doesn't throw it straight into the harbor.

After trying some incredibly tasty ANZAC Biscuits, this morning we walked to Hertz to pick up our Ford Focus rental car, stopping for a quick picture with the SKYCITY tower in the background.

With a harrowing trip out of the city- poor Corey had to get used to driving on the left side of the road- we were on our way to Waitomo.

We stopped in Otorohanga to visit the Kiwi House. We made it just in time for the Kiwi feeding (and only made it because shamefully we went through the McDonald's drive-thru and ate in our rental car), and we saw them in their nocturnal enclosure. The Kiwi House had an amazing array of other native New Zealand birds as well. Including the green Kea, the world's only Alpine Parrot with an appetite for destruction (yes, it has been known to eat your windshield wipers), and the black Oystercatcher, with an orange beak. NZ also sports a diverse array of waterfowl, most of which are fearless in front of humans, including Denise.

We went on the Waitomo caves to go on a glow worm tour. They were amazing- as if the Milky Way were made up of thousands of blue-green LED lights!
We watched the glow worm movie in the Discovery Centre, and found out that they were not actually worms, but fungus gnat larvae which dangle sticky "fishing" lines down and through a series of biochemical reactions, phosfluorescent proteins "glow" in their bums. This attracts flying insects to their "fishing" lines, because they think it is the night sky so fly towards the glow, and once they get stuck, they get eaten. The fungus gnat spends about 9 months in the larval state, and they have to store up enough food to get them through metamorphosis into the adult stage. They only spend a few days as adults, and after they mate and lay their eggs, they immediately die- so sad. We checked into our B&B- the Waitomo Caves Guest Lodge-had dinner at Curly's Bar (Corey had fish and chips and Denise had a shepherd's pie) and then borrowed "torches" to go on a nearby walk- the Ruaraki Bush Walk- to see glow worms up close- so cool! Although we couldn't take pictures in the caves, the same glowworms were down a ten minute hike on the trail, alongside a wet riverbank. We also spotted a possum along the way -- aside from sheep, these guys probably outnumber humans in NZ too, and are considered a pest since they eat the native birds, especially Kiwi. Nowadays, they are also used for their fur -- possum fur mittens are a hot commodity!