Newly reopened after an interval of 18 years, Ruakuri cave offers a captivating blend of Waitomo's most compelling subterranean experiences. In any one sightseeing tour, your guide will bring you close to glowworms, elaborate cave formations, underground rivers, myths, legends and sacred Maori sites.
Your journey begins at The Long Black Cafe where your guide will meet you. From there you will be transported to Ruakuri Cave, where you will enter and begin a spiral descent from ground level via an incredible drum entrance and walkway. You then continue on a 1.6 kilometre guided tour underground.
Ruakuri is New Zealand's longest guided underground walking tour and an experience that must be seen to be believed. It will leave you open-mouthed, awe-struck and humbled by the sheer majesty of nature.
Aranui Cave is set in the Ruakuri Scenic Reserve, 5 minutes drive from the Waitomo Glowworm Caves.It is named after Ruruku Aranui, the local Maori man who first discovered this previously hidden gem back in 1910.
Aranui has a natural cave entrance and is the smallest and most delicate of Waitomo's three main caves. As a dry cave without a river running through it, it houses very little life past its entrance. However, just inside the entrance is a colony of native New Zealand cave wetas and further into the cave is the most beautiful collection of stalactites, stalagmites, flowstones and decorative formations.
Aranui is a magical, mystical place is steeped in Maori myth and legend and occupies a very special place in the hearts of the people of the Waitomo district.
