Waikaretu Caving

Today we went caving in Waikaretu (Why CARROT two). We saw stalagtites, stalagmites and creepy crawlies. We walked through water up to our knees and mud that went past our ankles. The mud sucked one of Melanie's shoes right off of her foot!
 

One part of the cave is a tight squeeze. We had to crawl on our hands and knees through an underground stream for 50 feet. The water was cold and the stream was rocky. An eel lives in that part of the cave. Eels are slimy, but don't bite people.
 

At the end of the cave, we climbed up stairs into the light. The surrounding bush is lush and thick with moss. Do you see the Dr. Suess trees? Those are called cabbage trees.

 

We saw a cave spider and many glow-in-the dark glow worms. Because their light is a soft blue glow, we weren't able to to take a picture of that. But you can see the long sticky strings that the glow worms use to catch their food. There was fungus that looked like hair. And outside we saw a bird called a tui in the flax plants.