Our wonders rival the best
Iadmit I didn’t think there was much more to Waitomo than its famous glow-worm caves until a couple of years ago. Like a lot of Kiwis, I went there as a kid, and remember keeping my eyes peeled for goblins as our boat full of tourists made its way through the glow-worm grotto under a glitter-sprinkled invisible ceiling (I was re-reading The Princess and the Goblin at the time). But that’s about it.
I returned because I convinced myself I was brave enough to try out blackwater rafting. I’d been a bit too confident as it turned out. Drifting towards what sounded like a subterranean Niagara in my inner tube, my nerves drowned out most of the excitement I’d been feeling until that point. I knew I’d have to jump off it backwards in the pitch black. By that stage though, I really had no choice but to go with the flow.
While jumping off that first waterfall felt like a highoctane version of smoking for the first time – I coughed and sputtered after opening my mouth when I went under – the adrenaline that adventure activities are supposed to inspire eventually kicked in, and I was able to sit back, relax and fully appreciate the galaxy of glow-worms above.
Driving somewhat aimlessly through the area the next day, I discovered equally luminous, yet far more under-theradar, attractions: The Ruakuri Walk through a prehistoric-feeling gorge with rocks stacked like pancakes; the stalactite-studded 17-metre-high limestone arch that is the Mangapohue Natural Bridge, and the rainbow-making 35-metre-high Marokopa Falls.
Brook Sabin includes the Mangapohue Natural Bridge Walk in his list of New Zealand’s 10 unofficial natural wonders on pages 34-35, which serves as a reminder that, while the official natural wonders are off-limits, we have some pretty cool stuff to see in our own backyard.
If you are a bit despondent about when we might be able to travel overseas again, news that 13 of the world’s best experiences can be found here might lift your spirits. That’s according to the second edition of Lonely Planet’s Ultimate Travel List.
Fiordland National Park, described as “a landscape of giants”, was the highest-ranking New Zealand destination on the list, with the travel guide saying it “offers some of the world’s most mindblowing kayaking and hiking”.
New Zealand only just made the top 30 (exploring the “lost city” of Petra in Jordan took top honours, followed by visiting the islands that helped shaped Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution in the Galapagos), but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Pre-pandemic, Petra had more tourists than it could handle and, post-pandemic, we don’t want that to happen here if we’re serious about making our tourism sector more sustainable.
New Zealand’s “natural wonders” are different, but no less dazzling than the official wonders. As Sabin notes, we even have our own grand canyon.