7.2.06

Te Anau

Instead of going to Mount Cook today, we went to Te Anau for an extra day. We flew here on a small propeller plane, and landed at an airport that was, literally, a landing strip with a shack at the end. It’s very pretty here, though; there are snow capped mountains and lots of trees and such. There is a lake in Te Anau, appropriately called Lake Te Anau, and in lieu of the Mount Cook expedition, we went to a cave across the lake to see Glowworms. Glowworms are tiny worms that live on the ceiling deep in certain caves in Australia and New Zealand, and yes, they really glow.

To get to the Glowworm cave, we took a treacherous half-hour boat ride across the lake, and then walked about a quarter of a mile into a small cave. Once deep enough into the cave, we got into a small boat and went into the pitch-black Glowworm caves. The bugs are very small, and look like little baby LEDs on the cave ceiling – like a relief of stars. It was very pretty, and quite eerie to be in a pitch black, water-filled cave with thousands of worms overhead. I’m glad we didn’t go to Mount Cook.