Taking Photos in the Waitomo Caves
No — not in the show cave, and the operators are unusually clear about why. Here is the reason, the two caves where cameras are welcome instead, and which tours reach them.
The rule, stated plainly
No cameras in the Waitomo Glowworm Cave. Not phones held low, not an action camera on a strap, not a compact with the flash disabled. One operator asks that cameras and GoPros are left on the bus entirely rather than carried in switched off.
The ban is absolute and it is enforced by the guides, who are working in the dark with a hand lamp and will notice a screen immediately.
Why, and it is not crowd control
The reason is published in the booking notes, and it is the best answer anyone gives: the glowworms react to a flash by switching their lights off, and take about two hours to come back to full brightness.
Read that again with the boat in mind. A tour goes through every few minutes. One flash does not spoil your photograph — it empties the ceiling for the boats behind you, for the rest of the morning.
The light is a hunting tool. Each larva glows to lure insects onto silk lines it has lowered from the roof. Switching off is a defensive reflex, and it costs the animal its meal. More on what the glowworms actually are.
Where cameras are welcome instead
Two caves in the district permit photography, and both are reachable on tours listed here.
Ruakuri Cave is a 90-minute guided walk entered by a man-made spiral ramp, with glowworms along its route and no boat. Cameras are permitted. One tour reaches it: the twin-cave day trip from Auckland, which pairs it with the 45 minutes in the show cave.
Spellbound is a separate three-hour twin-cave tour with a boat on a different underground stream. Photography is permitted there too, and one day trip from Auckland sells it.
| Cave | Cameras | Boat | Tour length | Reachable on |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Waitomo Glowworm Cave | Banned outright | Yes | 45 minutes | Most tours here |
| Ruakuri Cave | Permitted | No | 90 minutes | The twin-cave day trip |
| Spellbound | Permitted | Yes | 180 minutes | One small-group day trip |
| Aranui Cave | Not stated | No | About an hour | No tour here reaches it |
Camera rules as each operator publishes them. Aranui carries no entry because no operator here states one either way.
What about phones on aeroplane mode?
Still no. The rule is about the camera rather than the signal, and a screen at full brightness in a dark chamber is its own problem for everyone standing near you. The guides do not make exceptions for it.
Is the ban a bad thing?
Travellers who have been say something consistent, and it is worth taking seriously. One put it this way: go in expecting a completely different kind of cave visit, and the glowworms will still catch you out. The ban is the reason the last stretch is done in silence with the lamp off, and the reason nobody in the boat is looking at a screen.
The practical consequence is simply stated: whatever you remember is what you will have. Several people describe that as the point.
Buy the operator’s photograph if you want one. Souvenir photographs taken by the cave are on sale at the end of the tour, and they are excluded from the fare on the listing rather than hidden in it.
Photographing the district above ground
Nothing stops you photographing the rest of it. The Waitomo Caves Domain, the visitor centre, the cave mouths and the King Country hills are all fair game — the gallery is most of what there is to see above ground. Driving yourself, the road down is the photogenic part of the day that nobody plans for.
What a permitted glowworm photograph looks like
Worth setting expectations before you book a tour for the camera alone. A glowworm is a pinprick of light in a black chamber, and a phone renders it as noise. The photographs that work come from a camera that can hold a long exposure on something that does not move, which is why the good images of Waitomo all show the silk lines as well as the lights — a long exposure is what makes the threads visible at all.
In Ruakuri you have 90 minutes and a guide who is not working to a 45-minute clock, and that is the practical difference. In the show cave you would have neither even if the rule did not exist, because the boat moves and you are sitting on it.
The souvenir photograph
The cave takes its own photographs and sells them at the end of the tour. They appear in the exclusions on the listing rather than being folded into the fare, which is the honest way round: you are not paying for one unless you decide to.
Nobody has to buy it. It will be the only image of your own visit that exists, which is either a good reason or an irritating one depending on how you feel about the rule by the time you reach the shop.
What the guides do about it
The rule is enforced on the tour rather than at the door. Guides work in the dark with a hand lamp and a screen is the most visible thing in a cave, so it is noticed immediately and asked about immediately. Nobody is thrown out; you are asked to put it away.
What they will do instead is show you things. A guide with a lamp held at the right angle picks the silk threads out of the black, and that is the image most people leave with rather than any photograph they might have taken.
What to do about it, in order
- Decide whether a photograph matters to you at all. For most people it does not, once they are in the boat.
- If it does, book a tour that includes Ruakuri or Spellbound and treat the show cave as the part you watch rather than shoot.
- Leave the camera in the vehicle rather than in a bag. It removes the temptation and it satisfies the operator that asks for exactly that.
- Check the hobbiton and waitomo caves tour listings for which cave each tour reaches before you book, because the titles do not always say.
Read next: the four caves compared · what happens on the boat tour · every question answered · Waitomo Caves Tours.
Tours this post is about
The tours that reach a cave where you may use a camera, and the one that hands you the time to choose your own.
