Journal day 67 - Whitianga, Bone Carving & Hot Water Beach.


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Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Coromandel » Whitianga
April 13th 2011
Published: April 30th 2011
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Whitianga.
Breakfast with Hayley and her mum Jane.
Went into Whitianga and walked around. Really good weather and very pleasant harbour town. Feels like a quite a real off place with a lot of sailing and arts.

Bone Carving.

I decided I wanted to have a go at making my own piece of Maori jewellery. I read about a place here in Whitianga called Bay Carving where you can carve your own piece of bone. I sat down at the campervan park before I went into town and roughly worked out a design.
I decided to have a go at combing Celtic and Maori design. There's a bit of a similarity between Maori and Celtic patterns. Decided to make the overall shape that of the Maori fish-hook but formed from Celtic knotworks.
The fish-hook is a very important Maori symbol that represents the fish-hook that Maui, the demi-god used to pull up the greatest fishing haul ever, 'Te Ika a Maui' (the fish of Maui), or otherwise known as the North Island of New Zealand. And he had made this fish-hook out of the jaw-bone of his great grandmother...!
So I thought it would be good to make my own version of the Maui fish-hook out of bone. Not my Great grandmother's though!
Went to Bay carving and spent the rest of the day there carving into a tiny bit of cow bone.
The tutors said I was my design was a bit ambitious for a first attempt but to hell with that.
I was instructed on how to use each tool. A variety of cutting and sanding tools that get smaller and finer as you progress from cutting out the general shape and on to shaping, engraving and sanding the piece. Spent the whole day there until I was kicked out so I'll have to go back tomorrow to finish it off and sand it down.

Hot Water Beach.

Headed down to the 'Hot Water Beach' which is a few miles south of Whitianga and is a bit of a natural phenomenon where volcanic activity a few kilmetres below the surface works it's way up to the surface of the beach. At 2 hours on either side of low tide a number of areas on the beach get so hot you can barely stand on them.
So people bring their spades down to the beach and dig themselves little baths that fill up with warm water and create little natural spas....

It was getting dark when I arrived but that assed to the weirdness of it all. I met a Belgium couple, a german girl and a few others and we dug ourselves a hole to sit, chat and burn ourselves in. Bizarre.

Decided to stay in the adjacent Hot Water Beach campsite where I bumped into Hayley again. We met a guy Steve from California and chatted the evening out.

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