New Zealand tourism hot spot Waitomo Glowworm Caves celebrates 125 years

By Travel New Zealand —— Bio and Archives February 3, 2014

Comments | Print This | Subscribe | Email Us

Santa Monica, Calif., – Waitomo Glowworm Caves celebrates its 125-year anniversary of guided tours in 2014. Waitomo Glowworm Caves’ formations of stalagmites and stalactites and thousands of tiny glowworms lighting the journey through the caves attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors each year and regularly features in global lists of the top caves in the world.

The caves have been drawing people from not only around New Zealand, but also around the world, since they were first opened to the public in 1889 by local Maori Chief Tane Tinorau, making them one of the founding four tourist attractions in the country. Waitomo Glowworm Caves were first explored by English surveyor Fred Mace, accompanied by Chief Tinorau in the late 1880s. Local Maori people knew of the existence of the caves, but the subterranean caverns had never been extensively explored until Mace and Tinorau went in to investigate. Originally, Chief Tane and his wife escorted groups through the cave for a small fee of one candle.