I found New Zealand's best-kept secret hiding in a cave full of glowworms

By the time we blokes reach a certain age, it's hard to illuminate us with childlike wonder. However, right now, in this subterranean cave complex, on Lake Te Anau's western shores, in Fiordland National Park, I'm like an enraptured toddler beholding a night sky full of glistering stars. Only the sparkling firmament is all around me.

As we process through the system's labyrinthine limestone passages, past hanging formations hewn from rock by underground rivers, all I can see are constellations of tiny twinkling lights.

Created by chemical reactions in thousands of worms - that are actually insects - blu-tacked to every rock face, these bioluminescent glows are nature's way of luring dinner, which is then reeled in on web-like fishing lines.

These glowworms are mean little buggers too, partial to cannibalism.

Not that this information detracts from the childhood fantasy I'm inhabiting, that's only amplified by climbing into a small boat, inside an unlit grotto, for a floating vigil of the stars. It's official, I'm four-years-old again.

It's typical of Te Anau, known as the gateway for Fiordland cruises, Milford Sound and three of New Zealand's 10 Great Walks, to hide its lights under, if not a bushel, then a forested outcrop. These glowworm caves, a short boat ride from town, weren't even found, by anybody but the Maori, until 1948.

Meeting locals here, they seem happy/unhappy at the overexcitement about other South Island resorts like Queenstown and Wanaka. While this town of 3000 people is well endowed to provide Fiordland adventure and hospitality to throngs of visitors - Te Anau's improbably home to New Zealand's top gastro-pub (see breakout) - it's more geared to a smaller "slow travel" mob, content to dwell and smell the mountain buttercups.

Contrary to local advice, however, I'm only here two nights and am cramming everything into one day, in between cycling the Around the Mountains trail, circumnavigating the nearby Eyre ranges.

My day therefore begins early, with cycling the 28-kilometre Lake2Lake trail that links Te Anau with Manapouri, an even quieter lakeside settlement. It's midsummer but at 7.30am, the mist enshrouding Lake Te Anau and the Waiau River I'm cycling beside, has a chilly bite that hastens my ascent through native beech forest, then speeds my plough down the other side.

Reaching Manapouri, I thaw out over breakfast, before discovering Two Wee Bookshops, twin pea-green-coloured shacks, owned by author Ruth Shaw, secreted away - as is this region's way - on a residential street.

When Fiordland puts on a summer show, as it does this morning, nowhere on Middle Earth matches it. Cycling back from Manapouri, straggly clouds collect around mountain tops like smoke signals blown by a Maori demigod, the sky is tuned electric blue and the Waiau River is a whitewater gush, twirling through the valley.

Flouting Te Anau's slow travel imperative, I sign up next for the town's fastest ride, the Fiordland Jet, which thumps back along Waiau River into Lake Manapouri, at up to 70 kilometres per hour.

Jetboat skipper Alex looks young enough to be on her Ps and initially drives like it, performing splashy doughnuts and pulse-raising spins.

Yet there are hushed moments, too, like when we drift on the river taking in locations from The Lord of the Rings movies. Or disembark on the lakeshore, for a 15-minute walk among moss-embossed trees and lavish ferns that is pure Tolkien.

Another benefit of this uncrowded town is how close attractions are. Arriving back from the Fiordland Jet, it's a 200-metre amble to board the Glowworm Cave tour that conveys me back to toddlerdom.

Then, after communing with minuscule underground stars, it is five-minutes cycle, along the lakefront, to Steamers Beach, where I've booked an evening sweat session at Wildwood Sauna.

Young German-born local Johanna Seibel introduced this mobile sauna, wheeled onto Te Anau's lakeshore (Thursday-Sunday) in early 2026 and it's already going gangbusters.

Sweltering away in this handcrafted sauna, fronted by a grey sand beach, with water-level views of Fiordland's mountains through its glass frontage, is a soothing way to end any day, with cold-water dunks in Lake Te Anau adding to the therapeutic package.

It's been a short, sharp stay in Te Anau but I've managed to slow down and even reverse-age here while uncovering some bright lights.

It appears, though, that somehow not everybody got the town's understated memo. While I'm relaxing in the sauna, three local lads arrive nearby, with portable karaoke machine and casks of beer, and put on a show, defined by raucous vocals, that is distinctly un-Te Anau.

The writer was a guest of Fiordland Jet, Wildwood Sauna and Real NZ