| Waitomo | |
| Image Alt: | Photograph of cave entrance |
| Mapframe: | yes |
| Mapframe-Zoom: | 9 |
| Subdivision Type: | Country |
| Subdivision Name: | New Zealand |
| Subdivision Type1: | Region |
| Subdivision Type2: | District |
| Subdivision Name1: | Waikato region |
| Subdivision Name2: | Waitomo District |
| Subdivision Type3: | Ward |
| Subdivision Name3: | Waitomo Rural Ward |
| Leader Title: | Territorial Authority |
| Leader Name: | Waitomo District Council |
| Leader Title1: | Regional council |
| Leader Name1: | Waikato Regional Council |
| Leader Title2: | Mayor of Waitomo |
| Leader Title3: | Taranaki-King Country MP |
| Leader Title4: | Hauraki-Waikato MP |
| Seat Type: | Electorates |
| Postal Code Type: | Postcode |
| Timezone: | NZST |
| Utc Offset: | +12 |
| Timezone Dst: | NZDT |
| Utc Offset Dst: | +13 |
| Area Code: | 07 |
| Coordinates: | -38.2607°N 175.1033°W |
Waitomo, officially Waitomo Caves, is a rural community in the King Country region of New Zealand's North Island. There are several solutional cave systems in the area around the village, which are popular tourist attractions. Restaurants and accommodation are centred in the village to serve visiting tourists.
The word Waitomo comes from the Māori language: wai meaning water and tomo meaning a doline or sinkhole; it can thus be translated to be "water passing through a hole".[1] The caves are formed in Oligocene limestone.[2]
The historic Waitomo Caves Hotel is located in Waitomo Caves village.[3]
Māori lived in the Waitomo Caves area in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Opapaka Pā to the east of the village was occupied by Ngāti Hia in the 1700s.[4] One of the first two explorers of the Waitomo Glowworm Cave in 1887 was Tane Tinorau, who lived nearby and knew the entrance to the cave as a good spot for catching eels.[5] Naturalist William Smith described seeing an abandoned Māori village or 'kāinga' of raupō huts across the valley near a lake, while he was travelling between the accommodation at Waitomo Caves and the Ruakuri Cave in 1906.[6]
The village of Waitomo Caves is named for the hundreds of caves present in the spectacular karst landscape. The limestone landscape of the Waitomo District area has been the centre of increasingly popular commercial caving tourism since before 1900, initially mostly consisting of impromptu trips guided by local Māori. The Waitomo Glowworm Cave near Waitomo Caves was nationalised by the Crown[7] and managed as a tourism attraction from 1904 onwards.[8] At this time tourists would set out for the Waitomo Glowworm Cave from Otorohanga or Hangatiki railway stations which had been opened in the 1880s. A 1915 guide said, "[The cave] is reached by railway to Hangatiki, thence 6 miles by coach along a good road".[9] There was tourist accommodation at Hangatiki in the early 1900s,[10] and by 1904 accommodation and a store had been built at Waitomo Caves.[11] [12] In 1909 the government built a hotel, and the village gradually developed to support increasing tourism to the caves in the area.
The Waitomo Caves Museum provides information about the karst landscape, caves and caving and the history of the area.
There are many caves in the Waitomo Caves area, but some are on private land or only accessible to cavers rather than tourists.[13] One example is Gardner's Gut at the Ruakuri Scenic Reserve. This is the largest cave system in the North Island, and it is used by caving clubs for beginner caving experience.
Companies specialise in leading tourists through some of the limestone caves of the area, which are noted for their stalactite and stalagmite displays and for the presence of glowworms (the fungus gnat Arachnocampa luminosa) in caves with streams running through them. Cave tours range from easily accessible areas with hundreds of tourists per hour in the peak season, to activities such as blackwater rafting and crawls into cave systems, which are only seen by a few tourists each day.[14] Tourist caves include:
In 2004, around 400,000 visitors entered caves in the area, and a visit to Waitomo Caves made number 14 on a list of 101 "Kiwi must-do's" in a New Zealand Automobile Association poll of over 20,000 motorists published in 2007.[21]
The Waitomo Walkway runs through the valley of the Waitomo Stream (a tributary of the Waipā River) for 3.3km (02.1miles) from the village to the Ruakuri Scenic Reserve.[22] At the reserve the Ruakuri Walk leads through short caves to the Ruakuri Natural Bridge.[23] The Opapaka Pā walk to the east of the village was a short track through native forest and up to the site of a former pā, but it closed due to a large slip.
The Mangapohue Natural Bridge is located 26 km to the west of Waitomo Caves. A short track lets visitors explore the area around the double arch, a remnant of a cave system that has disintegrated.
Te Araroa, a national long distance walkway, passes through Waitomo. The section from Mt Pirongia joins the Waitomo Walkway to enter the village.[24] The 17.5km (10.9miles) section to Te Kūiti goes over Mangapu River suspension bridge and through Pehitawa kahikatea forest.[25]
Hangatiki statistical area, which includes the settlement of Waitomo, covers 326.46km2.[26] It had an estimated population of as of with a population density of people per km2.
Hangatiki had a population of 1,254 in the 2023 New Zealand census, an increase of 69 people (5.8%) since the 2018 census, and an increase of 153 people (13.9%) since the 2013 census. There were 642 males, 609 females, and 3 people of other genders in 477 dwellings.[27] 2.4% of people identified as LGBTIQ+. The median age was 44.4 years (compared with 38.1 years nationally). There were 204 people (16.3%) aged under 15 years, 237 (18.9%) aged 15 to 29, 573 (45.7%) aged 30 to 64, and 240 (19.1%) aged 65 or older.
People could identify as more than one ethnicity. The results were 73.7% European (Pākehā); 37.8% Māori; 1.4% Pasifika; 2.6% Asian; 0.7% Middle Eastern, Latin American and African New Zealanders (MELAA); and 3.8% other, which includes people giving their ethnicity as "New Zealander". English was spoken by 96.9%, Māori by 10.3%, Samoan by 0.2%, and other languages by 4.3%. No language could be spoken by 1.9% (e.g. too young to talk). New Zealand Sign Language was known by 0.5%. The percentage of people born overseas was 11.7, compared with 28.8% nationally.
Religious affiliations were 28.5% Christian, 0.2% Islam, 3.6% Māori religious beliefs, 0.5% New Age, and 0.5% other religions. People who answered that they had no religion were 59.6%, and 6.9% of people did not answer the census question.
Of those at least 15 years old, 174 (16.6%) people had a bachelor's or higher degree, 603 (57.4%) had a post-high school certificate or diploma, and 285 (27.1%) people exclusively held high school qualifications. The median income was $39,900, compared with $41,500 nationally. 81 people (7.7%) earned over $100,000 compared to 12.1% nationally. The employment status of those at least 15 was 558 (53.1%) full-time, 144 (13.7%) part-time, and 21 (2.0%) unemployed.[28]
The community has a number of marae, affiliated with Ngāti Maniapoto hapū:[29] [30]
Waitomo Caves School is a co-educational state primary school,[32] [33] with a roll of as of [34] It opened in 1910.[35]
