Glo worm caves and penguins!!

Waking up in Te Anau today, ready for a trip to see glo worms, which are endemic to NZ. A short half-hour boat ride over Lake Te Anau, which is the 2nd largest lake in NZ after Lake Taupo on North Island.

This lake is the largest containment of freshwater in Australasia and is fully drinkable without treatment.

The Tunnel Burn (stream) flowing through the Te Anau Glowworm Caves originates from the Murchison Mountains. We visited the Te Anau Glowworm Caves (250 metres long), which are the lower part of the much larger Aurora Caves system.

The system is dated at 30-35 million years old, although the section we visited is dated at less than 12,000 years old, making it very young in geological terms.

Before going into the caves, we were able to watch how they produce the sticky string like threads in which they catch their prey, together with what happens when they get too close to each other. Who needs prey when you have a tasty neighbour, who is likely to also be a family member?!!

Within the caves, we boarded a boat manually pulled by the guide, taking us further into the darkness. The lights of the glowworms were amazing!

A drive to the south east area. Nugget Point with a viewpoint and walk out to the lighthouse. On the rocks below we could see fur seals, and some playing in a little rock pool.

Then on to Roaring Bay Penguins & Seals Observatory which is basically a beach with a hide.

They return from their day of hunting late afternoon. We could see from the google reviews that not all visits are successful.

Having arrived about 6pm, after an hour looking hard over the whole sweeping bay and spotting in the water various penguin shaped bits of seaweed, finally Billy waddled out about 7pm much bigger, closer and much more obvious than we had been looking for!

By 8.15pm we declared Billy definitely didn’t have friends and headed off, and 1.5 hours later having a very late arrival in Dunedin.