A mud bath and other acitvities

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Mt Manganui, caving in Waitomo, mud baths in Rotorua, Shopping in Auckland & a trip to the Bay of islands.


Next on the agenda was Rotorua otherwise known as Rotton Rua. This is because the town is built around many geo-thermal mud pools and it can get pretty stinky. It wasn´t as bad as we expected but you would get the odd whiff that could make you feel a bit quesy. Don´t think I could see myself becoming a local anytime soon..

We booked ourselves on a Maori night for that evening. This activity is very popular in Rotorua and involves learning more about the Maori culture and experiencing the food. We went along with a couple of friends from the Magic Bus, Michael and Emma and Jen whom we´d bumped into again that day.

The name of the company was Tamaki so we went to their centre first where they told us about the origins of the Maoris in New Zealand. They came from the South Pacific, islands such as Polynesia, in their canoes or ´wakas´ following the stars to a new land. After this we all (there were about 100 booked for that night) got on our wakas or ´buses´as they are more commonly known to head out the Maori village. On the way out we had to pick our chief for the night who would be the leader of the bus. Karen was particulary gutted to discover this had to be an adult male, handsome and intelligent and that she didn´t qualify in any of these areas. We decided to nominate our reluctant Chief Michael instead.

On arriving at the village we were greeted by some Maori men in traditional dress, just a grass skirt basically, who did some crazy scary dancing to determine if we had come in peace or as enemies. We had already been warned not to smile or laugh as this is disrespectful to the warriors and that they would spear us. Well...maybe not spear us but certainly be very angry. At times it was hard to keep a straight face as there is a lot of sticking out the tongle and eye-popping but we keep our composure and were rewarded with a peace offering to the chiefs and granted access to their village.

Next we saw some traditional Maori crafts and learnt about how they sustained themselves using the land when they arrived in New Zealand. We were also given more information about the training the wariors had to undertake and the weapons they used. We were then taken in a traditional meeting house where we saw an excellent performance of song and dance including a Maori love song and the magnificent Haka. This has been made famous in modern times as the NZ rugby team perform it before a rugby match and it is really is effective in intimidating those who see it - those big Maori dudes are not to be messed with!

At this stage we were starving and thankfully we were ushered into a huge dining room where we were to have traditional Maori feast or ´hangi´. This is where all the food is slow cooked under ground at different levels depending on how long it takes to cook. We didn´t actually see this process obviously because the food was ready at that stage but it didn´t matter because it was yummy! It had been a long time since we´d had roast chicken, potatoes, carrots and gravy followed by pavlova and it was delicious! Makes my mouth water just thinking about it...

...moving on. After dins we went outside again where they sang more traditional songs. We then waddled our way back to the waka, sang more songs on the way back to Rotorua and got dropped off at our hosel about 11.30. Tired but nicely stuffed!

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Photos

Maori in their Maree
Back in the days before white man came to NZ

The Haka!
Authentic Haka - what the NZ All Black Rugby team do before playing on the pitch

Koru
Most photographed plant in NZ

Woodcarver
Testing my skills carving the NZ symbol of the silver fern into wood

Mud Bath
Treating ourselves to a bit of a smelly pampering in Rotorua

Kauri Tree
Magic gang at the second biggest tree in the world