Tuesday - Rotorua

Today we drove to Roturua, a town in the middle of the geothermal area. There are geysers and hot springs everywhere, and a smell of sulphur is present over most of the town. The Maori settled here quite early on, using the hot water to wash and cook with, then the Europeans started arriving as tourists.

This is a wharenui (big house, or meeting house) in Ohinemutu, the principle Maori settlement in the area before Rotorua existed. 

Just opposite is an Anglican Church, decorated throughout with Maori carvings and tukutuku (panels or latticework).

We spent a while in there chatting to a lady about her family and Rotorua. So strange to see roadworks outside issuing steam into the air. All the graves are above ground, in white concrete blocks, as it's impossible to dig a hole without coming across a hot spring. A lot of graves were from Maori who had fought in World War II as part of the Maori Battalion.

In the craft shop round the corner I learnt lots about how to prepare NZ flax and weave it from this lady. She is making a shoulder wrap, and the top edge, which looks like long stiff beads, is actually the dried flax leaf, and the parts she is weaving are the soft prepared flax fibres from within the leaf. The fibres flow naturally from within the leaf, if that makes sense. She's used onions skins to dye the fibres brown.

We then went to visit Government Gardens and the Rotorua museum which is in the old bath house. This was the croquet pavilion on the lawns outside! This whole area was leased to the Europeans in 1881 by the local Maori who had quickly grasped the potential of tourism.

A major original attraction in the area was the pink and white terraces, but these were destroyed in a major eruption in 1881.  It seems the land given for a spa was to keep the Europeans arriving.

In the evening we went to The Tamaki Maori cultural experience show. It could have been rather tacky, or Disney like, but actually it turned out to be interesting, informative and great fun. We were greeted as though we were visiting tribes, going through the full war challenge then the acceptance of the peace offering, before we were allowed to enter the village.

There they had arranged various areas to explain some of the Maori customs, games and way of life.

Unfortunately the light was fading as we were there for the evening performance, so pictures were not very good. Suffice it to say the men were taught a haka, while the women were taught games designed to improve hand eye co ordination and accompany songs.

We were then shown how how food for the evening, our hangi, was cooked in pits in the ground using baskets of meat and vegetables on top of white hot stones, which are then covered with sacking and earth and left for about three hours.

Next event was a concert which was really good. The Maori voices were on a par with Welsh voices! All the time we were getting taught more Maori words and customs and I think everyone there enjoyed it. Then we finally got to eat, chicken and lamb with potatoes, carrots and sweet potatoes. Then it was coaches back to town, including our painful attempts at singing European songs. Final minibus back to our hotel deposited us exactly outside our motel room at about 10.30 pm. A late night for us.