WAITOMO CAVES

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 51, 23 November 1929, Page 13

WAITOMO CAVES

ONE OF THE WORLD’S WONDERS MILLIONS OF LIGHTS HOW THE VISITOR IS THRILLED

(By H.P.) Fifty years ago this year a Government surveyor named Mace was working out the redemption of the heavily-bushed land in the bills at the back of le Kuiti when he learned from the Maoris, that there was one very good spot lor eels at the mouth of a river that gushed from beneath a cliff, coming apparently from the bosom of the earth. He found the place and the eels —but he found something else. He was not content to watch the water—a stream about eight or ten feet across —gush out of the earth. He wanted to know where this stream came from—and why. . So he built a rouglit raft, and with makeshift paddles pushed his way under the archway of limestone rock, and within a few minutes found himself in a land of fairy enchantment- —be had discovered the amazingly beautiful glow-worm caves which have made Waitomo one of the sights of the world. He continued further, lit by millions of lights furnished by these strangest of God’s creatures until he opened up the vaulted chambers of the Waitomo Caves, and so gave to New Zealand one of her most precious and beautiful possessions. A Genuine Thrill. To day Waitomo attracts people from all corners of the globe. Its wonders are so unusual, so out-of-the-way, so amazing iu their disclosure of Nature s mysterious workings that they give the visitor, no matter where he comes irom, a genuine thrill. Sitting on the lounge of the splendid Waitomo House after a visit to the caves, the talk veered round the world, to all the famous sights are offered the tourists —Niagara Falls, the Panama Canal, Boroburdur, the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone Park, 1 ictoria Falls, the fountains of Versailles, the Pyramids of Egypt, etc., etc., etc. One visitor stated that his adventure of that evening—the trip through the Waitomo Caves and the glow-worm hall—was worthy to rank with any of the sights mentioned. Somehow or other the atmosphere of the great vaulted chambers of glistening silica, hidden away under a mountain of limestone, conveyed in a vague spiritual fashion some faint conception of the mysterious craftsmanship of those two indissoluble comrades—Nature and Time. It was distinctly thrilling to learn that a stalactite in these caves grows downward at tho rate of an inch in about a thousand years, and the progress upward of the stalagmite is even slower; yet here were stalactites thirty, forty, fifty feet in length, and as stout as tree trunks; so that these amazing growths, caused so simply by the action of water percolating through limestone, were, in existence as long as man himself. That thought, conveyed to one in the presence of the stalactite and stalagmite, the points of which are only one-sixteenth of an inch apart, was rather staggering.

The Cathedral Cave. The grandeur of the magnificent Cathedral Cave, with its pulpit, its organ and organ loft, beggars description. The ceiling ranges in points from forty to seventy feet in height, and it could with ease accommodate a congregation of two hundred people. Its acoustics are perfect, thanks to a couple of shafts that lead off from the ceiling away up into the mountain. Ou the evening I visited the cave the guide informed the visitors that on a recent occasion a party of singers from IYA had broadcast a concert from the Cathedral with great success. In a weak moment he asked any one member of the party to sing, and to hide their embarrassment he switched off the electric light. Then an awful male voice, husky, wheezy, flat and stale, arose, and e’er three notes had shattered the midnight gloom loud objections arose from the remainder of the party.

The Waters of It is after visitors have walked the paths of fantasy through the various caves that they come to the waters of Lethe, that dark river that flows from no one knows where through the caves, aud out into God’s good sunlight through the valley below the great white bouse upon tile hill. Approaching the river the guide cautious all to be silent, informing till that the worms of the vaults respond to any kind of noise by switching off I heir "tail lights.” Out goes the one electric light, and 10. in its place one sees a couple of million tiny specks ot bluish light bespangling the low-vaulted roofs of these water-floored caves. Then, whispering instructions, the party are helped into a large whaleboat that has been moored somewhere in the Stygian darkness. Last of all the guide steps

in for’ard, aud, having grasped unseen wires slowly pushes the boat along the stream under the domed ceiling that can only be compared with the heavens themselves. Sometimes the stream is higher than others, and people have to duck their heads to avoid the stalactites, but in the hands of the guide the big boat, carrying perhaps twenty people, is deftly manoeuvred through this vault of dearest enchantment until be quietly indicates the point where tbe river reaches the open, and one can faintly perceive the moonlight glinting the trees at the eave mouth. Then the return journey is made, all in perfect quietude, until the party arrives back at the landing stage. Then the electric lights are switched on, and steps are retraced through the caves back to the magic door, which divides two worlds.

Earning a Meal. These worms are ingenious workers in the dark. Not only have they the power to attract the fleeting fly, moth or mosquito, with their fairy lights, but each one lowers a length of sticky web about six inches from its body, and woe to the insect that alights on it. It cannot break away, and its agitation attracts the attention of the worm, which pulls ip the line and forthwith devours the victim. When the real lights are switched on these caves of the wormy splendour seem as though they are decorated with dainty fringes of spun glass. These mastie threads were really the forerunners of the modern domestic fly-catchers.

Waitomo House. Nor are the caves and the worms of light the only attraction. The new Waitomo House is probably the best appointed and most, modern of accommodation places. There is no city hotel in New Zealand that can vie with it in the artistry of its appointments and furnishings.' There is hot and cold water in every room, a perfect system of bat hs, lashings of hot water always, a perfect table, radio, glowing fires, on chilly nights in a wonderfully comfortable lounge, card-rooms, corridors instead of passages, and everything kept exquisitely clean without any loss of comfort. What a surprise Waitomo House, gives to the visitor. Coining over a winding road of uneven surface from Te Kuiti, the car winds through the hills, disclosing here and there a small farmstead, or a Maori shack, when suddenly high on a hill straight ahead one sees the glistening White House of Waitomo, so startling in its whiteness under the glowing red roof of Marseilles tiles, so majestic in situation, so modern and friendly, that it gives one quite a thrill to think that such things can be, away up in the heart of the hills. Waitomo will always live in one’s memory..