Scenes From Underground, Part II
World renowned and a magnet for both local and overseas visitors, the Waitomo Glowworm Caves occupy a high placing in the New Zealand vacation wish-list. The glow worm, Arachnocampa luminosa, is unique to New Zealand. Thousands of these tiny creatures radiate their unmistakable luminescent light as our expert guides provide informative commentary on the Caves' historical and geological significance. Waitomo Glowworm Caves are a must see for any traveller. Enjoy the world famous boat ride under thousands of magical glowworms and become a part of over 120 years of cultural and natural history.
Jun 29, 2012
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A student from the University of Indonesia descends into Jomblang cave
at Gunungkidul district, near the ancient city of Yogyakarta, on June
20, 2012. Jomblang cave is one of the hundreds of caves in the
Gunungkidul district. Jomblang is known for its fertile and dense
vegetation and is located in the karst hills that run along Central Java
to West Java provinces. (Reuters/Dwi Oblo) 
The upper cave of the Jeita Grotto north of Beirut, Lebanon, on
November 10, 2011. Jeita Grotto is a group of caves located 20 km north
of Beirut in the Valley of Nahr al-Kalb (Dog River). In these caves and
galleries the action of water in the limestone has created
cathedral-like vaults of stalactites and stalagmites, stone curtains and
fantastic rock formations. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla) #
A tourist walks through an underground tunnel archaeologists say is a
2,000-year-old drainage tunnel, leading to Jerusalem's Old City, on
August 2, 2011. The excavation of the drainage tunnel beneath Jerusalem
yielded new artifacts from a war here 2,000 years ago, archaeologists
said. (AP Photo/Dan Balilty) #
A man inspectas a sinkhole formed in a house on July 19, 2011 in the
north of Guatemala City. When neighbors heard a loud boom overnight they
thought a cooking gas canister had detonated. Instead they found a deep
sinkhole inside a home. The sinkhole was 12.2 meters (40 feet) deep and
80 centimeters (32 inches) in diameter, an AFP journalist who visited
the site reported. Police, members of the country's natural disaster
office and water utility company officials came to visit the site.
Sinkholes, formed by the natural process of erosion, can be gradual but
are often sudden. Guatemala City, built on volcanic deposits, is
especially prone to sinkholes, often blamed on a leaky sewer system or
on heavy rain. (Johan Ordonez/AFP/Getty Images) #
Aviam Atar, of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, enters a steel
cavern, part of an abandoned Israeli army bunker during a media tour for
Reuters near the West Bank city of Jericho, on January 23, 2012. The
abandoned Israeli army bunkers along the Jordan River are providing a
lifeline for bats on the endangered species list, researchers say. (Reuters/Ammar Awad) #
The pavement of Route 61, eroded and covered in graffiti in Centralia,
Pennsylvania, on May 24, 2012. Fifty years ago, a fire at the town dump
spread to a network of coal mines underneath hundreds of homes and
business in the northeastern Pennsylvania borough of Centralia,
eventually forcing the demolition of nearly every building. The fire
still burns beneath some 400 acres, and may continue to burn for another
250 years. (AP Photo/Michael Rubinkam) #
Some of the 20 million bats emerge from Bracken Cave in Bracken, Texas,
on August 31, 2011. A depleting insect population has forced millions
of bats around drought-stricken Texas to emerge before nightfall for
food runs, making them more susceptible to natural predators. Some
experts have already noticed fewer bats emerging from caves and have
seen evidence that more infant bats are showing up dead, hinting at a
looming population decline. (AP Photo/Eric Gay) #
A sign welcomes visitors to a lab 4,850 feet beneath the earth on
Wednesday, May 30, 2012. The Sanford Underground Research Facility in
Lead, South Dakota, will house the world's most sensitive dark-matter
detector. Scientists say that the lab -- housed inside the now-shuttered
Homestake Gold Mine -- could help scientists understand the origins of
the universe. (AP Photo/Amber Hunt) #
An employee of AlpTransit Gotthard Ltd and a visitor stand in the NEAT
Gotthard Base tunnel near Erstfeld, on May 7, 2012. Crossing the Alps,
the world's longest train tunnel should become operational at the end of
2016. The project consists of two parallel single track tunnels, each
measuring 57 km (35 miles) in length. (Reuters/Arnd Wiegmann) #
Construction workers lift a piece of the ceiling off an underground
tube that the Saw Mill River flowed through in downtown Yonkers, New
York, on November 1, 2011. The Saw Mill River, which was covered over in
Yonkers in the 1920s, is in the midst of a "daylighting" process, being
uncovered and integrated into a riverside park in the downtown of the
city. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig) #
View from inside a tunnel recently found in the northern border city of
Tijuana, Mexico, on November 30, 2011. A day earlier, the tunnel was
discovered by U.S. authorities in San Diego's Otay Mesa area, the latest
in a spate of secret passages found to smuggle drugs from Mexico. This
tunnel is a 400-yard passage linking warehouses in San Diego and Tijuana
and is equipped with lighting and ventilation. (AP Photo/Alex Cossio) #
A municipality worker looks away from the welding glare as another
repairs an underground water pipeline in Mumbai, on October 16, 2011.
The water distribution system in Mumbai is over 100 years old. Water is
brought in from six lakes after treatment, and stored in 23 service
reservoirs. (Reuters/Danish Siddiqui) #
A staff member of the metropolitan outer floodway management office
looks around pressure-adjusting water tank, a part of a massive
underground water discharge tunnel which was constructed to protect
Tokyo and its suburb area against floodwaters and overflow of the city's
major waterways and rivers during heavy rain and typhoon seasons, at
the facility in Kasukabe, north of Tokyo, on September 28, 2011. The
world largest underground discharge channel at 50 meters below ground is
more than 6 km long, and can hold 670,000 tons of water at maximum, the
management office said. The ceiling of the concrete water tank is
supported by 59 pillars, each 7 meters long, 2 meters wide, 18 meters
tall, and weighing 500 tons. (Reuters/Kim Kyung-Hoon) #
A man stands outside a tunnel opened by unsuccessful treasure hunters
near the northern Greek town of Grevena, on December 12, 2011. As years
of austerity take an ever harsher toll, more and more Greeks are finding
solace in tales of buried riches dating from the near-bankrupt
country's turbulent recent past. Despite rife urban legends of rich
findings, prospective treasure hunters usually end up in police cells. (AP Photo/Nikolas Giakoumidis) #
Tourists walk towards the main entrance of the Niah Great Cave at Niah
National Park, in the Malaysian state of Sarawak in Borneo, on March 29,
2012. Niah Caves contains the oldest remains of Homo sapiens found in
Borneo, and features the world's largest limestone cave entrance as well
as ancient rock paintings. Studies published recently have shown
evidence of the first human activity at the Niah caves from ca. 46,000
to ca. 34,000 years ago. (Reuters/David Loh) #
Speleologist Carlos Lopez looks at paintings of seals believed to be
the world's oldest works of art -- approximately 42,000 years old, in
the caves of Nerja, southern Spain, on February 14, 2012. These seal
paintings are the only known artistic images created by Neanderthal man,
according to scientists. (Jorge Guerrero/AFP/Getty Images) #
A visitor looks into a tunnel forming part of the old Malta Railway
which was closed down in 1931 in Floriana, outside Valletta, on October
23, 2011. Locals and tourists flocked to see part of the network of
tunnels which were opened to the public on Sunday for the first time in a
generation, according to local media. (Reuters/Darrin Zammit Lupi) #
Israelis participate in a speed dating event on the eve of Tu Be'Av,
the Jewish holiday of love, in Zedekiah's Cave, also known as Solomon's
Quarries, under Jerusalem's Old City, on August 14, 2011. Hoping the
exotic setting would provide a conducive backdrop for romance,
organizers brought 70 Israeli singles to the subterranean quarry for the
unique speed-dating marathon to mark the 15th day of the Hebrew month
of Av, the Jewish holiday of love. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner) #
A hotel staff member guides visitors inside a bomb shelter under the
garden of the Metropole hotel in Hanoi, Vietnam, on May 21, 2012. The
Metropole hotel opened the formerly-functional underground bomb shelter
for visitors. U.S. folk singer Joan Baez and actress Jane Fonda, foreign
war correspondents and foreign diplomats took shelter in it during the
Christmas Bombings in 1972, as well as other bombings during the Vietnam
war. (Reuters/Kham) #
An employee of French National Radioactive Waste Management Agency
ANDRA works at the digging of a tunnel 500 meters underground at the
Underground Research Laboratory of the Agency in Bure, Eastern France,
on June 11, 2012. Bure, about a three hour drive from the French
capital, is currently home to an underground laboratory, a precursor to
the waste site. France and Finland are close to approving the world's
first permanent radioactive waste storage sites. (Reuters/Vincent Kessler) #
Tourists kayak through the once high-security Beihai military water
tunnels on the island of Nangan in the Matsu Island chain, off Taiwan,
on October 4, 2011. The Matsu island chain, once a front line against
rival China, is now pushing for a military tourist destination. (AP Photo/Wally Santana) #
A family, displaced by the recent fighting between forces loyal to
Yemen's outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh and tribal militants loyal
to anti-regime protesters, sits in a cave in the mountainous area of
Arhab, north of Sanaa, on January 8, 2012, as they wait to receive
Qatari aid. (Reuters/Mohamed al-Sayaghi) #
Workers prepare to take a load of pipes and other material on a rail
car into the northbound Sound Transit light rail tunnel between
Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood and the University of Washington, on
October 12, 2011, in Seattle. The tunnel is part of a three-mile link
between downtown and the University of Washington that is scheduled to
open in 2016. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren) #
Related links and information
First Neanderthal cave paintings discovered in Spain - New Scientist, February, 2012
Seattle's University Link - A light rail extension project currently underway
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