A five minute walk or short drive from the café is the Waikaretu bush and waterfall walk, a 60 minute round trip.

“It is at times like those,” says Anne, “when most of our kids are here and the café is humming and Philip is working behind the bar and we’re all doing various jobs, that we purr the most.”

Titiwai, the New Zealand glow-worm, Arachnocampa luminosa, is the larvae of a fly known as a fungus gnat.

A team-building day out at Nikau Cave & Cafe can include anything from caving to tree planting, with good food in between.

Phillip and Anne Woodward of Waikaretu, south west of Tuakau, are some of the earliest covenantors with the QEII National Trust.

Since it was first dreamed about, this has always been a place for people.

I felt scared and confident and also excited as well.

I am crawling on my elbows and knees up an icy stream which flows through a long narrow cave about half a metre high. The torch is waterproof - but my shirt, trousers and boots are definitely not.