My Bubble: Discovering Waitomo Caves Part 2

This is the second caving tour of the day ... the Ruakuri Caves, the longest underground tour in Waitomo.

According to Maori legend, Ruakuri Cave was first discovered 400-500 years ago by a young Maori hunter spearing birds for food. A pack of wild dogs inhabited the entrance way and the cave was subsequently named Ruakuri ('rua' meaning den and 'kuri' meaning dogs) Cave. The cave entrance was used by Maori as a burial ground (wahi tapu) and it is this sacred area that has now been protected with the construction of the spiral entrance a safe distance away. That's where we entered for our tour.

The tour was more exciting than Aranui within a beautiful cave with breathtaking galleries and passages of stalactites and stalagmites, easy walkway on well-formed paths and boardwalks with lighting wherever necessary. The best part of the tour was getting up close and personal with the glowworms. Imagine at one point we had to hollered at the top of our lungs to make them glow as bright as possible. You see, they are receptive to noise as it indicates source of food is close.

Photography was prohibited in some areas and even if it was not, taking photos in these darkened caves was really a huge challenge for photography novices like us. Check out whatever we could shoot at the Ruakuri Cave here.