Eggy smell but Rotorua's swell!

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After another eventful nights sleep in faithful old Colin, we got up for our first full day in Rotorua. The air was just as stinky and putrid as the night before and bean was opting to breath through her mouth, to try and stop herdelf from retching all the time. Today, we were in for a treat, Rotorua is famous for its natural thermal hot springs, so we were off for some spa treatment! whoo!

We found a nearby spa, which was also a rehabilitation centre! So being naughty little bears, Bean told a biniki clad Pea to get on to a stanard stair lift stylee chair, while Bean winced me into the thermal spa pool! The pool smelt worse than it did outside, as its the sulphur thats in the water in Rotorua that is smelly but is very therapuetic too. The water itself was lovely, it was a soothing giant hot bath. We relaxed in the pool for about half an hour, then showered and changed. The very nice, young lady at reception showed us the mud baths on the complex also. You could either have a two person, Roman sytle, stone bath or a gorgeous, old fashioned, Victorian bathtub to yourself. They looked very inviting but were a bit pricel, so we headed back to Colin.

Next we had a light lunch, and took a tour around Rotorua, stopping to do some laundry and to book a tradational Maori experience for the evening.

At 6.30pm, we arrived for our traditional Maori meal at the Matariki, in Rotorua. We were seated around a large dining table with some other guests; a small wisp of a boy and his girlfriend, a lecturer from southern Ireland and a Australian mother and daughter.

Being poor, deprived backpackers we gleefully tucked into the bread and jugs of water that was provided on our table. We began chatting with our fellow diners, until our hostess for the evening introduced herself. She was a slim, very cute, old lady in traditional Maori dress. Traditional Maori dress for a woman consisted of a headdress with a feather, plain coloured, knee length beaded skirt and a pretty woven patterned top which was red, black and white. Our hostess told us that first we would get to the see the hangi pit (where they cook the food), then we get try the deletable Maori food and finally watch a traditional Maori performance of dance, music, songs, games and customs.

Suddenly, a beatiful specimenof man jum,ped on stage! He was a traditional Maori dress, a small beaded skirt and no top (to Anna, Bean's and my delight). He had tribal tattoos, a spear and was performing a warrior dance. The girls and I were reduced to giggling school girls, myself in particular. I gripped Bean's arm to stop myself from running onstage, slinging him over my shoulder and running out of the door with him. Anyway, after he finished his dance, we were allowed to pose for photographs besides him. Anna, Bean and I rather sheepishly made our way to the stage and posed with this hunk of perfection. But as soon as heleft the stage our minds soon turned to more pressing matters-food!

There was five buffet tables laid out for us with meats, vegtables, fish, soup, rolls, sauces, salads and deserts. Conversation quickly halted as we tucked into dinner. We all had at least four plates of food each and as the Maori performance started Anna had to scoot off as she had scoffed too much and now felt sicky pants!

The Maori performace was amazing, they had us clapping along to the music and wiggling our hips to the songs. They even dragged us on stage to try and teach us the Poi-a material ball on a long piece of string, with a tassle at the end. The poi is used in Maori culture for hand-eye co-ordination skill, dancing and fun. Our attempts at the poi were sketchy but it was a good laugh. The men also had to get on stage and were taught the Haka. The haka is the Maori warrior dane, a warrior would perform the haka before battle to psyche themselves up, show off their physical force and intimidate their foe. After a lovely day at the spa this was a fantansic way to end the day. Our host were were wonderful and had fed and entertined us all night long. We thanked our hostess for a great night and snuggled up for another night in Colin.

Love Sooty. x

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