Monday 15 Jan, by Jono,
The plan when we went to bed was to get up and go to the Lady Knox geyser, since the geysers at the Maori village hadn't been too impressive. Lady Knox goes at 10:15 everyday, but only because it is induced to do so. In the end however we missed that opportunity in favour of a lie in and late breakfast. We skipped straight on to Teresa's tip of going to Kerosene Creek. This did not disappoint, even though it was raining the air temperature was 22°C and the water was warmer than that. The whole river steams as it flows down the valley and it is beautiful to just sit and relax in. There is a small waterfall too.
After Kerosene Creek we headed back to our Airbnb for a quick bite of lunch before our canopy tour with Canopy Tours. This combined lovely long zip lines with some Eco tourism. The guides were great, and so were the views over the forest. We chose this tour because of the work the company has done in maintaining and restoring a native forest; this forest has been there since before the Maori arrived, and the native birds have returned to it only because of the trapping work done here. I think one of these zip lines is also the longest one we've done so far!
Here's the eco bit, all about how the gas powered traps can kill 24 rats or 12 possums between reloads, requring a lot less effort to keep the area clear of pesky bird killing mamals.
Back to the van which brought us to the forest from town to shuck off the gear then a quick trip back to our Airbnb for a piece of cake. We also had to have a bit of chocolate and boysenberry ice cream. We'd over done the shopping and this litre of ice cream wasn't going to make it to Wellington.
Time for the Hāngi along with the Maori cultural experience.
There was a big long intro from our guide, he seemed to know how to say hello, welcome and chocolate cake in a lot of languages which got laughs from the audience! We all filed out to see the waka (canoe) that featured in the film "The Piano" (you can see a glimpse of it being used in the link to the trailer), we then got to see how the food was being cooked (on hot rocks wrapped in wet towels to make them steam), after that we were shown the tribes' sacred fresh water spring, and then the warriors arriving down the stream by flaming waka.
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| the waka from The Piano |
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| traditional dress and tattoos (these tattoos were painted on using eyeliner, we didn't see any modern Maori women with real tattooed faces) |
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| the hangi (food cooked in the ground) |
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| the pool of water the village used (and that we drank with our dinner) |
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| flaming waka arriving to chanting |
Once the war party arrived we were taken to the show area where a traditional village set up was displayed for the show. It started with a member of the audience being chosen to be our chief then our chief talked to their chief, and our singers sang to their singers. All nicely hammed up!
We saw the women demonstrate their poi, the men did a haka, we were shown traditional musical instruments, heard traditional songs, saw sports and games demonstrated, Maori words, language and culture were nicely explained. It's a good way of starting to understand the traditional Maori way of life and how much of it is still taking place today.
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| women with poi |
Then back to the food house to eat; not a lot of culture in the food; sea food chowder and garlic bread, peas and sweet corn with sweet potato, plenty of delicious lamb and chicken cooked in the hangi, with chocolate log and pavlova for desert. After the food we were taken on a walk through the forest to see more glow worms along the river and some traditionally constructed huts. Our guide talked to us about the uses the Maori put the fern trees to (poison, house building and signalling) and some of the legends and stories that accompany the different trees.
On the way back we revisited the gift shop at the redwood walk; Karen had spotted some jewellery she liked, and this was our only slot to check it matched her skirt.
Talk about packing a lot into one day!
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