Mud, mud, glorious mud- Central Plateau (Part II)

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Cowabunga dudes, yep it was the adrenalin of adrenaline days. First the wake up call early Tuesday morning, White Water Rafting, excellent! There were 2 raft groups going out that morning so we were put in to the A-team group, I ain’t going in no water. I pity the fool as I woke up from my drowsy state to find ourselves hurtling down the biggest commercial waterfall that you can do in the world! Talk about plunge into the deep end on your first go, it was along the Kaituna river, grade 5. (This is the highest grade you can commercially do as well, the one above, grade 6, is for the pro’s only). But it was awesome! Again I won’t say too much more as there’s nothing like the unexpected for those who may want to do this in the future (but feel free to email us or ask us more on this once back). The only thing was it was too short as we just wanted to go back in again afterwards. The good news on that is we’ll be able to go rafting again when we reach Queenstown, cool!

Next was a hearty lunch before taking a gondola up Mount Ngongotaha. This was a bit surreal for us as it was just like going skiing except no skis, no snow and its summer time, what’s going on? The good weather seem to be finally staying out and the locals reckon it’ll stay now until April, not bad at all!! So this is what a mountain looks like without any snow; grass, trees, bushes, flowers. At the top we got a superb view of the city, Lake Rotorua with the island in the middle, and the surrounding mountains and volcanoes, cool! There was a short bush walk to go further up so we ventured along this snapping away the impressive vistas. Once back at the gondala we went luging, now this is truly awesome!

The luges are funky carts with 3 wheels, no motor like in go-carts. Now we both like go-karting but this was even better. First track was the scenic one giving you the same views I just mentioned as you wind down the mountain. This is the slowest one so you can get to grips with it, and so you don’t find yourself crashing off the track and falling halfway down the mountain. Wow we thought after finishing it. We eagerly headed back on chair lifts, just like the ones in skiing. Again a bit surreal for us as we’d become so used to using them for skiing. Next track is the intermediate one, this has a cool chicane near the start which you can whiz thru and is so much faster. As we were whizzing down this, Ali heard me yell whoah followed by one of the people on the chairlift commenting “did you see that”. This was because I had just turned a corner at high speed with only two of my wheels touching the ground. This was from not braking and instead zooming into a corner so I was having to lean in, holding on for dear life and one of my back wheels left the ground. It must of looked like I was going to flip over but I held in and was fine, shooting down the next straight. Game on! Now we’re both getting quite excited and looking forward to the advanced track. So back up on the chair lift we went, jumped off and raced across to get into the next available luges.

Bang! We’re off zooming down the mountain with sharp bends, a big jump (awesome), an s-bend (where I just avoid crashing into the wooden barrier and then from going into the gravel pit as I come out of it), then another jump, and few more bends before heading in home to the finishing line. Wow it’s one of the best things we’ve done so far!! And that’s saying something. We then went up and did this 2 more times, it was just so much fun and exhilaration. The second time I took the s-bend far too fast and span off into the gravel pit, allowing Ali to overtake, doh! Oh well I guess I had to let her have some glory. The third time no such mistake but lost to much momentum for the second jump so it was more like coming off a bump. If you over slow down in these luges it can be difficult to speed up again.

A quick break relaxing in the sun over ice cream, where we bumped into 2 people from our white water rafting. They had just done the scenic track and thought it was just ok and didn’t seem to understand us bubbling away about how good it was. They only had one more ticket so we advised them to go straight for the advanced. They loved it, particularly the jump and so could see why we were so enthusiastic about it. We’ve heard we can do this again in Queenstown, we can’t wait!

Next stop was Zorbing, Rotorua is the home of this. Now this is one gigantic ball that you get in and roll down the hill, crazy hey! They were running the washing machine one when we got there, cool! This is the one we wanted. So we changed into our swim gear and then headed up the hill. We then dived like superman into the ball, Ali went straight in, me I got stuck as I went in (we saw people get stuck before us so I didn’t feel to bad) and had to kind of shuffle jump my body to get in. We landed into a big puddle of water within the ball. We then had to stand and give the ball a shove to kick off rolling down the hill. It was just mental rolling about in water, crashing into each other, we just couldn‘t stop laughing. Then bang into the fence at the bottom and to a stop. Boy we were drenched and a tad dizzy.

We headed back to the campsite quite tired from our exertions but there was no let up. We had to quickly get changed as we were being picked up at 6pm for the Tamaki Maori Village evening. At this point we were starving as well so we were really looking forward to dinner. But the Maoris running the evening had other plans for us first, doh! First we stopped at a building in town, which they were using as central point from picking up everyone from the different accommodation locations. The buses they used reminded us of prison buses you see in the Hollywood films.

Whilst here we were given the history as to when the Maori first discovered NZ and then arrived those many many years ago. When the first Maori group came across Aotoera (NZ) they headed back using the stars to navigate them back to their homeland. (If you remember from the Auckland blog Aotoerea means “long island of white cloud”, well the cloud was in fact snow upon the mountains in the South Island, as the Maori who first saw this had never seen snow before so they thought it was cloud enveloping the mountains. Its still apt description though for NZ). Upon arriving back at their homeland they passed over the navigation details to the Maori group who were to emigrate and start anew up on this new land in the South Island, as they had overpopulated their current lands. From here the news spread and other tribes arrived spreading out across the South and North islands.

Afterwards we were then transported again away from the main town to the outskirts where the Maori village was. On each bus they chose a chief, there were a few Americans on the bus and we had a feeling one of them were going to be chosen. It wasn’t the one we thought who was going around saying he was from Texas, originally from California (with his Texas hat it wasn’t hard to guess either). However it was another American chosen instead, so close but no cigar.

After we had all departed the buses (about 5 coach loads) we circled around the entrance for the meeting of the chiefs ceremony. The Maori chief and his warriors then performed their entrance ceremony with their spears and using fire, which if you didn’t know better you could easily interpret as opening act of war. (You could imagine the unease Captain Cook must of felt when he first set sight on the Maori as they performed a similar act for him and his crew then). The act they performed was centrally aimed at the 5 chiefs (one from each of the buses) whilst we were on looking from the side. The Maori chief offered the “bus” chiefs a gift, which they accordingly accepted to show that their intentions in entering the village were peaceful.

The final act of this ceremony is for the chiefs to then bump noses twice. Upon completion of this ceremony we were then allowed entrance to the Tamaki village. This was set within the forest with various wooden buildings amongst the trees. (The buildings were bigger than the ones we saw in Kerikeri). Each building you walked past had a purpose that the Maori were demonstrating. The first being woodwork performed by the men to make the weapons (e.g. clubs and carve the statues and the facials that adorn the buildings and placed around the village). The next one was weaving performed by the Maori women. A tattoo parlour, none being performed but one of the Maori were explaining the significance of the Maori tattoos. There was a hut that we ventured into laid out as a home. A storehouse to secure their food, tools and weapons.

We then ventured into the Meeting Hall where they performed Maori dances and of course the Hakka. (Most of this we had seen already whilst at the Auckland museum, but was still cool to see again). At last it was finally time for food some 3 hrs later, we were led out of the Meeting Hall into the dining house. (We had found it hard going having to follow all the demonstrations as all we could think of was food). It was worth the wait though, it was traditional Maori hangi cooking served out on the tables as a buffet, superb. So of course I went back for second helpings, then there was dessert, which again I went back for second helpings. (Although Ali did have two dessert types in one bowl so you could say she had second helpings too).

It was then time to see how they cooked the hangi food but dinner time wasn‘t quite over. We were a bit perplexed by this as it all felt a bit rushed by the end and you just wanted to sit back and relax to finish eating and drinking. But we didn’t want to miss the demonstration either. There must have been a few people in the same situation as they announced we could bring our food and drink with us, so problem solved. So we ventured out with my second dessert in one hand and beer in the other hand, it was quite tricky to continue eating away but you’ll be glad to hear I managed, Ali had just manage to gobble up her 2 desserts so just had her wine.

The hangi is volcanic rocks heated to a high temperature over a wood fire, the wood collapses and the rocks retain the heat, rested on the glowing embers. The meats (chicken and lamb) are put on top on the rock, then flax baskets with veg in are placed on top and then a covering over the top so that puddings (i.e. steam puddings) wrapped in wet cloths can be placed on top. Then it is all covered over and left for 3 or 4 hrs. For this particular event they starting cooking the meats at 12pm and the veg and puddings from 3pm. So it takes some time but we can definitely say well worth it! After this we went back inside for the final dances to wish us farewell before we were then transported back to our various accommodation places.

On Wednesday it was time to go to hell and back, Hell’s Gate. We had free entrance tickets from the Tamaki Village evening so we thought why not before we leave. Just as well we did as it was just superb and we would put it there with the Wai O Tapu Thermal Wonderland as a joint top 10 thing to see ever. The Thermal Wonderland in the morning as you can only see the Geyser in action then and then in the afternoon Hell’s Gate. It helped that the day we went was a working day so we were first there (again I know what is happening, having said that we only got there shortly after 10am so not exactly early) and the sun was still shinning. It is another thermal park, except this time a muddy one. As we walked round the different bubbling and steaming mud thermal pools, the sunny weather and with hardly anyone there it made it all quite tranquil, if not a tad smelly from the sulphur. We could see why George Bernard Shaw (19th century playwright) named this “Hells Gate“ when he first gazed upon the mud pools.

Afterwards we then had a go at carving, the Maori person there explained how we were to follow one of the designs by lightly hammering a chisel along the pencil drawing he had made. I went for the silver fern, the symbol for NZ and Ali went for the kiwi. I thought she was brave taking that one on as it has a lot of curves in and looked harder than the fern. It was great fun giving it a go but I don’t think they’ll be giving us a call soon to take it up full time for them.

It was then time for our mud bath and thermal spa (this bit we did have to pay for but we were planning on doing this at Polynesian Spa so it saved us having to go there anyway). Ali was quite keen as she’s recently been converted to spas from a recent hen weekend she went on. I wasn’t so sure, but as they say when in Rome do as the Romans do and Rotorua is the place to do this. In we ventured to the warm mud bath, approx 38 degrees Celsius, covering the lower part of our faces in mud. Looking good! But not above as you don’t want to get the sulphur in your eyes, not good! Surprisingly I found it really relaxing and just so tranquil. You go all weightless and light headed. I think I found my answer to a long week at work to relieve the stresses, pains and aches from spending it in front of a PC and in the city nothing is ever simple. We could see why the Maori warriors used to bathe in the sulphur pools after battle to soothe their aching and wounded limbs. The only thing was we both found it hard to completely chill for 20 mins (that’s the max time you‘re allowed to stay in one), we’ll need to work on that one. As after about 10-15 mins we were getting a bit restless and could have done with telly or a good book each. Still we stuck out till time was called, then we had to have a cold shower to wash off the mud and cool us down a bit (as you do get a bit hot in there).

We then went in the thermal spas, the first one was 38 degrees again to warm us up again before going in the 40 degree one. That latter one we didn’t spend long in there as it just got too hot, but we spent a good few minutes in the first one further chilling out, where again we went all weightless and light headed. Afterwards it was like tranquil city for us. To keep the tranquil mood going we drove up to Lake Rotorua, where I sat and read, occasionally looking across the serene lake and Ali had one of her infamous naps.

To wake us up from tranquil city as we needed to drive on to Lake Taupo in the early evening plus get petrol and food shopping (not the best of planning there), we went luging again. Yep we couldn’t resist it plus we needed the adrenalin from the advanced track to wake us up otherwise we’d have gone nowhere. It was a shame to be leaving Rotorua as we really enjoyed ourselves here as there is so much to see and do, the sun was outshining the whole time (reminding us of our Queensland days), and skiing, surfing and diving is not far away either. We arrived in Lake Taupo to a glorious sunset over the lake, we would have photos of this but I must have gone too light headed and left my brain back at the spa. So by the time we found the campsite we were staying at the sunset was pretty much over, doh!!!

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