BLOGLET FIVE - June 2006

Last week I wasn't allowed out in the rain, this week I went underground in a very wet cave. We all spend most of our time walking around or playing on the surface of the earth but there are lots of things happening under our feet. At Waitomo there are some very famous caves. Caves are spaces in the rock underground. They happened for many reasons but you can often find rivers running through the caves so there was a connection to where we were last week. Water doesn't just stay on the ground when it rains and if it can seep through some soft rock then it sometimes finds itself in one of these caves and even helps to create them as it tries to find a way to the sea.

The cave is full of really funny rock formations. These happen when water drips down from. the roof of the caves. The drips land on the ground and slowly build up into a tall pillar called a stalagmite Then, sometimes the drips happen so slowly they actually form a rock before they drop and these are called stalactites. There are some pictures of these here. Before we went into the cave we had to be secured to a harness so that we could abseil down into the ground. It was a bit frightening but good fun. I had a great time underground and I saw some glowworms that live in the cave. See if you can find out more about glowworms.