Glow, little glow worm ...

On our March 18, Saturday, it’s actually the 17^th at home and everyone is celebrating St. Patrick’s Day.  We were past that, and we headed to a place called Spellbound.  We would walk in a couple of caves and then get onto a small raft to go view the glow worms in their cave.

We walked down a path that had lots of rock formations.  Many of these become slanted after an earthquake, but these were still all fairly level and in a good horizontal design.

Spellbound only takes up to 12 people at a time to visit the cave, and we liked that a lot.  The cave is on private property and you walk a path to get to the cave. 

A little up and down, some pretty terrain.

Down near the cave we crossed a bit of a creek.

It was enjoyable having a bit of a walk.  We stopped on a little creek bank and saw eels. 

It's an ugly-looking creature, I think.

Then it was time for the cave and the glow worms.  These little creatures are fascinating … and I didn’t even know they existed.  It’s dark when you first get inside the cave until your eyes adjust. 

The glow worms send down strands of mucous and that's what they use for catching their pretty ... bugs. 

Slowly, the lights came on.  At first you could only see a few, then more and more.  They were covering the roof of They were everywhere and put a glow onto the water that lit it up.  It was startling with the light and the color, what appeared to be a turquoise hue.

This is a not-very-good photo as it was in the dark and the camera was hand-held.  But it's all I have unless I can pull one of theirs.  If so, I'll replace it.  These little creatures lit up the cave like there were little fairy lights strung all over.  It was a beautiful effect, and best of all was, that these were alive.

We weren’t to take photos for the most part, and I understand as we don’t want to destroy their habitat or worry them.  There were some points that we could, but photos weren’t good ones as it was way too dark.  They sent us some we could use.  Of course, with not having access to my email for some reason, I didn’t get them off.  So, I can’t use them for this until maybe I edit it later.  For now, I’ll just use a stock one from some site.

We came out of the cave after seeing the little glow worms, and were headed to our next adventure. 

We walked past more rocks and trees, and it was a great feeling to walk through this country and see what we might not have otherwise.

It wasn't a long walk, but enough to stretch our legs a bit.

We entered the second cave of the day.

From there we were taken to a cave and a tour that included some pretty interesting things … a koa skeleton, for one.  It was a big bird that is now extinct. 

A koa was a large bird, that reminded me of an emu.

There were some nice formations in this cave, and are different than ones I've seen in other caves.

I really enjoy walking through caves.  Each is different, and has a variety of rock making it an interesting excursion.

I sure wouldn't want to get lost in any of these. 

In between caves, our guide had served us tea and cookies.  It was a nice interlude, in our little walks.  This was quite enjoyable, and Spellbound did a great job.

Then it was time to get back and go find Marakopa Falls and Piripiri Cave.  We drove out on a narrow and very windy road, but never saw a sign.  So we came back to town.  We saw a teeny, tiny sign.  And went back out again.  It was getting late so we decided to just go into the Mangapohue Natural Bridge as we knew there’d be other falls and maybe other caves to see. 

We did see a sign for something called the Tramping Track.  All along the fence line there were shoes, boots and slippers of all kinds, shapes and colors.  There were mostly one each, but sometimes a pair.

Woo hoo.  Another suspension bridge.

The walk into the bridge was cool and very nice. 

The natural bridge was beautiful, as they always are.  There’s a river below and the walkway along the side gave us some great views. 

Another gorgeous site to see.  The walls of the gorge were probably once the sides of a cave.  Eventually, it is thought, the roof became unstable and collapsed into a gorge.  The bridge portion is all that remains.

We wandered past the bridge and then into a pasture where there were cows.  They did not want their photos taken. 

Cow.  Not a happy one as it was giving me the stink-eye.

Between them and the sheep we’re not getting any farm animal photos.  What’s with that?