Month: January 2020

By Haakon

Jan 20 2020

 About a week ago my mom, my sister, and I felt like we were in fairy tale, but we weren’t, we were just inside the dim blue illuminated caves in Waitomo, New Zealand where glow-worms live. I didn’t really have any expectations, but I would sum up the experience as something magical.

On a clear sunny day in the north island we drove through rolling hills of pastureland , it was hard to image there would be anything more than dirt below us. We ended up at the bottom of a hill, along a creek where a cave mouth opened leading us into the darkness. When first entering the cave it seems like a normal cave, besides the 100’s of stalactites and stalagmites all around us, but soon we turned off our lights and waited 5 minutes for our eyes to adjust to the darkness; slowly but surely dim strings of blue light started to appear all around us in clusters. Looking closer in between every little dangling strand of transparent blue web-like formations, there was a glowing worm. Traveling further into the cave, the air getting cooler and the sound of a distant water fall louder, we boarded a small raft. Floating silently down the underground river, we turned the corner and there they were thousands of specks reflecting off the water and  lighting up the walls and ceiling of the cave with a sort turquoise glow. I felt I was right under the Milkyway looking up at the dotted stars across the pitch-black night sky, only they weren’t stars they were glow worms. Their light defined the contour of the cave and we could see their world. We gradually made it back the the mouth of the cave, leaving this wonderland behind us and I was filled with awe that such an amazing ecosystem exists on our planet.

Wanting to understand this more I did  little research on glow worms. Glow-worms are not actually worms, they are the larval stage of the fungus gnat. Glow-worms live in damp, dark, and still forests or cave systems where there is appropriate prey (other types of flies), they hang from gully walls, cave ceilings, and along stream banks. The prominent feature of the fungus gnat is hinted at in its larval name (glow-worm). The larval stage takes the predominant portion of the life-cycle, about a year. Then the remaining few weeks and days on either end of the cycle changing form egg to larva and larvae to gnat. The natural glow emitted during the larva stage is called bioluminescence. Glow-worms have a light-producing gland in their tail that is a byproduct of an enzyme called luciferase reacting with the multitude of chemicals.

How does a glow-worm find its food in a dark cave? Glow worms are blind and so create “fishing lines” to catch flies.  It takes glow worm 1-15 minutes to form a line up to 500 mm long, glow worms in caves tend to have longer lines then the bush-dwelling-glowworms where the wind can tangle their lines. The glow worms web is made by their mouth and once the web is down, they will coat it in sticky mucous to catch their prey (usually flies). With the bioluminescent light in their tail they can attract/trick flies into thinking that their tail is light to the open sky, thereby catching their prey. Glow-worms then emerge from their tube to eat their prey. Sometimes, if the tension or vibration in the line suggests it is too far down the line to be considered safe they can reel the prey in or cut the over-sized unwanted prey from their line.

Interestingly Glowworms are only found in the southern portion of the ancient continent of Gondwana. 550  million years ago this ancient component of Pangea was comprised of South America, where I just was; Australasia, where I am now; and Africa, where I am going next.

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January 1 2020

By Haakon

While we have been rolling down these long never-ending Patagonian dirt roads with enormous mountains to our left and right, I have had a couple things on my mind. One food craving, and two things I miss about Seattle. I have been craving a Dairy Queen blizzard, Hot Cakes (in Ballard), and good Indian food in general. The thing I am really bummed out about missing are, team sports, friends, ski-bus!!, not having to spend an hour and a half searching various stores for somewhat healthy food, and easy routines you can stick to. So, this brings me into what this blog post will be about, how traveling has put perspective on my everyday activities in Seattle.

              The main element I appreciate about Seattle is being able to have all your friends around you to hang out with, play sports with, talk with, etc. When traveling, inconsistent Wi-Fi is guaranteed, and you are always on different time zones so it can be hard to even talk with friends. The past 3 months I have really realized how nice it is to have all your friends within a mile from you so you can just do what you like to do together. The second thing I am just really going to miss is ski-bus, last year we talked the whole way to the summit, skied for three hours before hopping back on the bus and riding back to school where we got picked up by our parents we could ask to sleep over because it was only a Friday night and we had the whole weekend to go.  The third thing that I have come to really like about Seattle is team sports, not only are they a great way to get some exercise in but you can also be around friends while doing something you love. When traveling it can be very hard to get much exercise in like running for example; if you are somewhere that is unfamiliar you can get lost, and in bigger cities you don’t know how safe it is to run on your own.  That doesn’t mean you don’t go on hikes; we have gone on a lot more hikes than we would in Seattle so that is a plus about travel. We have been hiking several times a week through South America in some awesome places.

I expected to miss what I miss about life at home, so I am not surprised.  I didn’t think how fast the year would fly by, it’s the New Year already. I don’t know if time feels like that in Seattle but that’s what it feels like on the road. I haven’t got the shock, like oh woah I am really traveling the world; it’s more like I am happy to experience all the things that I am and it helps me be more happy with what I have and what I have learned because of my experiences. As ski bus comes closer, I will get more homesick, but I will just have to remember I have surfed, snorkeled, and mountain-biked while everyone was in school

              P.S. Tonight I am flying to Auckland, New Zealand and will be missing out on January 2d because of the time zones, just thought that was wacky.