Tiny green lights twinkled in the pitch black, like constellations of stars. The boat glided slowly and quietly through the water as we gazed at the hundreds of glow worms living deep in Waitomo Cave.

Waitomo is made up of two Maori words – ‘wai’ means water and ‘tomo’ means entrance or hole and the full translation means ‘stream which flows into the hole in the ground’, so Waitomo is an accurate name for this cave that has a river running through it, and under it.

We began our tour, guided by the great, great granddaughter of the one of the Maori men who first explored the cave, by descending down along a path and steps to an area called the Cathedral. We passed alien-like formations of stalagmites and stalactites, before arriving at a huge cavern, where you could see more weird shapes. The acoustics in this area of the cave are so good that opera singers have performed there and every year the local school children enter the cave to sing Christmas carols.

We wish we had some photos and video to show you, but it’s prohibited, so as to preserve the environment for the glow worms. Apparently, light can cause their glow to dim and it takes a few hours for them to shine bright again. However, you still always get some idiot tourist flashing a torch around or taking photos, almost spoiling it for everyone.

The display the glow worms provide is beautiful, ethereal and something that we’ll always remember.

You might be able to see some images at the following website – Waitomo Caves – to give you some idea of what we saw.

Time to drop off our campervan now (who we named Moe). It’s a night at an Auckland airport hotel before arriving in Christchurch (Friday 28th Feb).