Glow-worm trip a West Coast treat

jump out of Westport and has some of the best swimming holes I’ve ever plunged into.

I’ve always loved the West Coast. People slag off the West Coast like the English do Wales because it really is another country populated by another species of humanity.

Coasters have been accused of being small-minded and inward thinking. But the the place is full of get-up-and-go merchants with high energy levels that could be hooked up to the grid and turned into an alternative energy provider.

It has everything to do with living in a dramatic, bold environment that dominates every waking minute and makes you feel guilty for loitering inside.

You have to be fit to do the tour – if you can walk two hours on the beach you’ll be able to do the 123 steps up to the caves wearing a wetsuit, a helmet with an LED light and carrying a rubber tube under one arm to the entrance to the Nile River caves.

To get to the caves, you board a cute, little train with carriages that takes you through the rainforest and limestone rocks, which alone makes the experience worth it.

Once inside the caves, there is a plethora of stalactites and stalagmites to take your mind off claustrophobia.

When you reach the glow-worm end of things, you jump in the tube and put your feet up on the next person in line’s tube who tucks your feet under their arms and does the same to the person in front of them.

Then you paddle with webbed gloves in a conga line slowly backward, staring up at a heavenly galaxy of glow-worms until you see light at the end of the tunnel – the sunlight breaking through the ferns and a giant rimu.

To top off the overloaded experience, you get back into your tube and merrily float down the river thinking ‘‘life is but a dream’’ thoughts.

It was the closest thing I’ve had to a born-again experience, and made me feel more alive than a cup of Bell tea.