- Where
- Waitomo, King Country
North Island, New Zealand - Coordinates
- 38.26° S
175.10° E - The cave
- 1,300 m of passages
on two levels - Visitors
- About 500,000 a year
before 2020 (Wikipedia) - Returned
- 1989, to the original
owners’ descendants - Getting there
- By road, about 2 h
south of Auckland - Best visited
- Year-round
- Advisory
- New Zealand Level 1
Green hills grazed short outside, grey rock poking through the grass like the knuckles of something buried, and ferns crowding the cave mouth. Inside, the guide asked for silence and got it. We sat in a boat in the pitch dark and slid along without an oar, under a whole sky of small blue lights. I forgot, for a while, which way was up.
The short answer
The Waitomo Glowworm Cave, officially Waitomo Cave, is a limestone cave in the northern King Country of New Zealand’s North Island, 12 km north-west of Te Kūiti and about two hours’ drive south of Auckland, Wikipedia records. It has about 1,300 metres of passages on two levels, joined by a vertical shaft. On the lower level, the Waitomo Stream flows through the Glowworm Grotto, a chamber about 30 metres long whose ceiling is covered in the lights of Arachnocampa luminosa, the New Zealand glowworm. Visitors enter only on guided tours, which end with a boat ride through the grotto. Before the pandemic about 500,000 people a year took the tour. The name Waitomo comes from the Māori wai, water, and tomo, a hole or shaft.
Why it's worth knowing
Not worms. The New Zealand glowworm is the larva of a fungus gnat, found only in New Zealand. A larva hatches already glowing, builds a silk nest on the ceiling and lets down as many as thirty threads beaded with sticky droplets; its blue-green light draws in small flying insects, mostly midges that breed in the stream’s mud, which stick to the threads and are hauled up and eaten, Wikipedia records. The larval stage can last up to a year; the adult gnats that finally emerge live only three or four days. The glow is made by an enzyme and a light-making molecule unlike the firefly’s. In Māori the glowworm is pūrātoke, from a verb meaning to glow, and titiwai, lights reflected in water.
Shown, taken, returned. Tane Tinorau, a local Māori man who knew the cave’s stream entrance as a good place to catch eels, showed it to the surveyors Laurence Cussen and Fred Mace in 1884. In December 1887 Tinorau and Mace built a raft and floated in by candlelight, coming first upon the glowworm grotto. By 1889 Tinorau and his wife Huti were guiding paying visitors through the cave. After years of vandalism and attempts to buy it, the government took the cave under the Scenery Preservation Act and the Public Works Act in 1905, for £625. In 1989 the land and cave were returned to the original owners, among them the descendants of Tinorau and Huti, many of whom work at the cave; under the 1990 Waitomo Deed of Settlement they receive a share of the revenue and help manage it, Wikipedia records.
A cave that has to be rationed. Every visitor breathes out carbon dioxide, which can form a weak acid that eats at the cave’s calcite; too much air flow, on the other hand, dries the cave and harms the glowworms. A Scientific Advisory Group monitors carbon dioxide, temperature and humidity and decides how many people may enter each day, Wikipedia records. The lesson was learned the hard way: after a new entrance door let air through in 1975, glowworm numbers fell so far that the cave closed from April to July 1979 while the population recovered, with glowworms transplanted from other caves.
The field notes
Whose cave it is
Control of the Waitomo Caves has been shared between the Ruapuha Uekaha Hapu Trust and the Department of Conservation since 1990, under the settlement known as Wai 51, and the two are joint lessors of the land the tours use. In 2026 the Trust applied to the Minister of Conservation for a new 60-year licence and lease covering the car park and the guided tours, including the boat ride through the grotto; public submissions closed on 7 July 2026, no hearing was required, and no decision had been published when this entry was checked (Department of Conservation, read 7 October 2026). The current lease runs to 2027.
The Cathedral
The largest chamber, the Cathedral, is about 40 metres long and 13 metres high, with acoustics good enough that singers and choirs have performed in it; when the soprano Malvina Major sang there to about 150 people in 1998, scientists measured the carbon dioxide, heat and humidity the audience produced. Another chamber, the Banquet Chamber, was named in 1889, when the cave’s Māori owners set up a table and served dinner underground to a government party; their candle smoke still darkens the ceiling (Wikipedia).
No photographs
Photography is not allowed anywhere inside the Waitomo Glowworm Cave, by the operator’s visitor guidance as travel guides give it (indexed); the neighbouring Ruakuri Cave, on the same stream system, has its own glowworms and allows photographs, the same guides say. The visitor centre at the entrance, opened in October 2010 after its predecessor burned down in 2005, has a timber roof shaped to recall a traditional Māori eel trap, and won the New Zealand Architecture Medal in 2011. A pou, a carved post by local carvers at its entrance, shows Tāne Mahuta, god of the forest, with a kawau bird, glowworms and an eel (Wikipedia).
Glowworm threads hanging from a Waitomo cave ceiling, in a book plate from about 1915.
Photograph: State Government Photographer, History Trust of South Australia · CC0 · cropped
The Waitomo Stream running into the Ruakuri cave system, September 2012.
Photograph: Johnragla · CC BY-SA 4.0
The woven timber canopy over the Glowworm Cave's visitor centre, October 2012.
Photograph: Pseudopanax · Public domain
- Take the first boat of the morning or the last of the day, and stand outside for a minute first to let your eyes forget the sun.
- Do not attempt to count the lights. (Attempted. Reached an enormous number before the boat had left the jetty, and lost it to a sigh.)
- Pocket the camera before the stairs down. The cave asks it, and the dark is better without one.
- Listen to the guide as you would to a host in their own house.
- Walk the stream valley outside afterwards, and find the bridge of rock the water left behind.
The Tomo. A vertical shaft about 16 metres deep, cut by water through the limestone beside the cave’s main passage, linking its dry upper level with the lower level where the stream runs. It lets air move between the two, so the cave can breathe, and it is the tomo, the hole or shaft, in the name Waitomo, Wikipedia records. Visitors pass it on the way down to the boat.
Tally, in the marginA hole in the floor of a cave, going down into another cave. I leaned over it as far as manners allowed and heard the water down there in the dark, talking quietly to nobody in particular.
Getting there
How to get there. By road: Waitomo is about two hours’ drive south of Auckland, one hour south of Hamilton and two hours west of Rotorua, Wikipedia records, 12 km north-west of Te Kūiti.
When to go. Any time of year: parties of visitors have entered the cave almost every day since 1945, Wikipedia records. In heavy rain the stream inside can rise, and has occasionally flooded the lower level, Wikipedia notes, so a boat ride depends on the water.
What to arrange ahead. A tour ticket for your date and time, since entry is by guided tour only and the number of visitors a day is limited to protect the cave. Leave the camera in a pocket: no photographs are allowed inside. The tour follows designated walkways, with a short boat ride at the end when the water allows (Department of Conservation).
Safety. The State Department has New Zealand at Level 1, exercise normal precautions, its lowest level (advisory dated 29 April 2026 in its feed, read 7 October 2026). The cave is managed and guided; on busy days some passages close because carbon dioxide can build up.
Mark this place
Common questions
Where are the Waitomo Glowworm Caves?
The Waitomo Glowworm Cave is at Waitomo, in the King Country of New Zealand’s North Island, 12 km north-west of Te Kūiti. By road it is about two hours south of Auckland, one hour south of Hamilton and two hours west of Rotorua.
Are glowworms actually worms?
No. The glowworms of Waitomo are the larvae of a fungus gnat, Arachnocampa luminosa, found only in New Zealand. Each larva hangs sticky silk threads from the cave ceiling and glows blue-green to lure midges into them; the adult gnats live only three or four days.
Can you take photos in the Waitomo Glowworm Caves?
No. Photography is not allowed anywhere inside the Waitomo Glowworm Cave, by the operator’s visitor guidance. Visitors who want to photograph glowworms are directed by travel guides to Ruakuri Cave, nearby on the same stream system, where photographs are allowed.
Who owns the Waitomo Glowworm Cave?
The land and the Waitomo Glowworm Cave were returned in 1989 to their original Māori owners, among them descendants of Tane Tinorau and Huti, who first guided visitors there. Since 1990 control has been shared between the Ruapuha Uekaha Hapu Trust and New Zealand’s Department of Conservation.
Who discovered the Waitomo Glowworm Cave?
Māori knew the Waitomo cave long before Europeans. In December 1887 Tane Tinorau, a local Māori man, and the surveyor Fred Mace floated into it on a raft by candlelight and found the Glowworm Grotto; by 1889 Tinorau and his wife Huti were guiding paying visitors.
What happens on the Waitomo Glowworm Cave tour?
The Waitomo Glowworm Cave tour leads through the upper level and the Cathedral chamber down to a jetty on the Waitomo Stream, then ends with a boat ride through the Glowworm Grotto, which the guide pulls along an overhead wire. The cave has about 1,300 metres of passages.
Why is the number of visitors to Waitomo limited?
Visitors’ breath raises carbon dioxide in the Waitomo Glowworm Cave, which can damage its calcite, while too much air flow dries out the glowworms. A Scientific Advisory Group monitors the air and sets how many people may enter each day.
What does Waitomo mean?
Waitomo comes from two Māori words: wai, water, and tomo, a hole or shaft. The Waitomo Stream disappears underground into the limestone, and inside the Waitomo Glowworm Cave a vertical shaft called the Tomo joins its two levels.