After crowded and adventurous Queenstown, time to hit the road again and head southwest to Fiordland. The ultimate goal is to go to Milford Sound and go for a cruise in the fjord there, but first we had to pass from the main gateway into the Fiordland, the town of Te Anau. (Te Ana-au means 'cave with a current of swirling water')

The town is at the edge of the lake Te Anau, the second largest lake in New Zealand, but the biggest in water volume. The lake was gouged out by a huge glacier, but according to the Maori legend, at first this lake was just a small but magical spring providing fish to the local tribe. Te Horo, the local chief, discovered the sacred spring and, as its kaitiaki (guardian), asked his wife not to reveal its existence to anyone else. However, when he departed from the village on a war expedition, she showed it to her lover. As soon as her lover's face was reflected in the water, a raging torrent burst out, flooding the village, drowning its inhabitants and forming lake Te Anau. 

The main activity in this town is a visit to its caves. As its name in Maori suggests, there are a few caves around the lake. One of them, a 200m long system of caves, part of the greater Aurora system, is available for visits and has a special feature: glowworms. It is accesible only by boat, so the visit comes with a beautiful boat trip across the lake Te Anau. Then in small groups and with a guide we could enter the cave from a low entrance, which required us to walk almost on our knees. But quite soon after we came to the highest point inside, named The Cathedral. It is 20m in height from the cave floor, but still 40m under the ground level. The cave is really noisy from the water running in waterfalls and whirpools along the bottom. Then at a point we boarded a specially designed boat, there were no lights and we had to be absolutely silent. This is the part where we got to see the small worms glowing in the darkness. It was such a magical experience, like small stars on the ceiling and the walls of the caves. They are tiny and they are flickering so nicely, it is mesmerizing. The glow is a trick of the worm to attract food. They eat insects that are attracted to the light and are caught in 'fishing lines' they create, similar to the spider's web, but as vertical lines hanging from the ceiling. The hungrier a glowworm gets, the brighter it glows, and if it feels afraid or threatened, it will dim its glow. This species of glowworms exist only in New Zealand and Australia. Imagine our fireflies in a worm type and inside a really dark cave. The sight was amazing! I liked them so much, I got my own small glowworm (on a t-shirt)!