Woodlyn Park

We drove today to Waitomo, staying at Woodlyn Park, a center of "demented ingenuity", as Ilona called it. First the "motel" aspect: their goal seems to be to make a motel out of practically anything. They have rooms in an old train car, they have rooms in an old boat, they have a WWII-era airplane with rooms. Our room was in the "Hobbit Motel", with round doors and a hobbit-y feel to it. Surprisingly, the rooms were very spacious and very well furnished with high quality furnishings.




Woodlyn Park also runs a one-man "Kiwi Culture Show" that was a blast. It was held in an old barn that doubles as the reception/event area. The barn is filled with "antiques" (old junk, but enough to compete with the Waiheke Historical Society museum). There were only six of us in the audience (the four of us and another couple) but he ("Billy Black", though there appear to be more than one of him based on pictures from other shows) gave a great performance. Audience participation was a must, of course, so Mike took a stab at sawing a log (we would have made it through if my partner had worked a bit harder!), Ilona helped him blow up a log (not really, but there was a big bang), and Karin and Ilona helped him shear a sheep by cranking the clippers for him. There were animals (a pig, sheep, dog chasing the sheep, possum, goat, and, for the big finale, a cow). We actually learned a lot during the hour, and had a great time.



After the show, we went to the Waitomo Glow Worm Cave, which was the real reason we came to Waitomo. The area around Waitomo is littered with caves, caverns, and tunnels. Many of these have rivers run through them, and these dark, damp places attract "glow worms", a larval stage of a particular fly (technically, they should be called "glow maggots", but marketing stepped in to change the name). On our tour we first walked through a series of spectacular cathedral-like caves leading down to the underground river. The glow-worms live on the roof of the caves, and hang down filaments of silk to catch other insects to eat. It was kinda creepy to see thousands of these filaments hanging down above us.

We then got in a boat and coasted for about 15 minutes underground. Above us (in the totally dark cavern) were thousands of glow worms. It looked like a particularly starry night (with big green stars). Finally we made it to the entrance, where the stream exits the cavern system. No photos were allowed, but we bought the tourist photo of us in the cave, so I'll add that once I get to a scanner.

Click for Woodlyn Park photos