The name tells you the shape of the place. Waitomo comes from the Māori wai, water, and tomo, hole or shaft: the stream goes into the ground here, and the cave is what it made.
What people come for is Arachnocampa luminosa, a glowworm found nowhere but New Zealand. It is the larva of a fungus gnat, and it hangs sticky threads from the cave ceiling and glows to draw insects onto them. In sufficient numbers, on a ceiling, the effect is close to a night sky, and the Glowworm Grotto here has been called the most visited glowworm display in the world.
The boat ride is the point. You are poled silently through the grotto in the dark with no lights at all, because any light spoils it, and the ceiling above you is lit entirely by larvae.
The cave was known to Māori for about a century before it was surveyed, though there is no evidence anyone had gone inside. In 1884 a local Māori man, Tane Tinorau, showed the surveyors Laurence Cussen and Fred Mace where the Waitomo Stream entered the ground. In December 1887 Tinorau and Mace built a raft, went in by candlelight at the point that is now the tourist exit, and came upon the Glowworm Grotto, then the limestone formations beyond it. They explored further in February 1888, and Tinorau independently found the upper entrance that is used today.
The cave is part of the wider Waitomo streamway system, which also includes Ruakuri, Lucky Strike and Tumutumu. There is a modern visitor centre at the entrance, built largely in wood, and tours run all year.
New Zealand
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