Advertisement
Published: January 18th 2008
We rose early from our Turtle Cove accomodations on Sunday January 13th to head towards Roturua. On the way we made some very cool stops. After a quick stop at a cafe for "pies" to give us energy, we went to the Karangahake walk which involved wandering across bridges and through rail tunnels that used to be used for gold mining. It was really cool. I have great photos and a small video from this! We then went on to Mata Mata which is the small town where the farm used to film Hobbiton (the SHIRE) in Lord of the Rings is located. It was just a lunch stop and we didn't get to see the actually sights because you have to stay over there and pay stupid amounts of money for the tour. So, we took some photos with the hobbiton sign and called it a day!
After that, we got in the bus again to finish our drive to Roturua where we would participate in a Maori concert and dinner. This was a little on the pricey side, but well worth every penny! The concert was incredible, it started with an opening ceremony in which a "chief" was
chosen from the visitors. It had to be an adult male and it was very important that they maintained a quite and serious facade during the whole thing or they risked a strong head-butting from one of the Maori tribespeople! We learned quite a lot about the Maori culture and enjoyed an amazing show of song and dance. After this, they put on a traditional "Hangi" which is a dinner. Let me tell you, it was like CHRISTMAS dinner!! We had chicken, lamb, fish, mussels... everything. Dessert included PAVLOVA, my favourite dessert, which was apparently created here in New Zealand! That night we all went out dancing together for a bit, and then went to bed!
On Monday January 14th, Holly and I went white water rafting with our new Swedish friends, Adam and Joel. It was wild. We descended a 7m waterfall!! I will post photos! Holly and I enjoyed a North American style Dominoes pizza for dinner and then went wandering in Roturua to take some last minute photos. We got some great shots in the Government Gardens which had a beautiful rose garden!
On Tuesday, it was off to Waitomo!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.084s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 13; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0507s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb
