Rotorua and Maori Culture

After Hobbiton, which I covered in my last post, we all climbed aboard the bus. Our tour group was about 35 people plus our guides, and we filled the bus to capacity. During our two-week tour with Red Carpet Tours, we did spend a lot of time on the busses, but there was really no avoiding that because we zigzagged across much of the North and the South Islands, and it was the most efficient way to get us around.

We continued to Rotorua and checked into our hotel in the afternoon. Though Pedro and I were suffering from sunburns, and it was a warm day, we had enough energy to check out a nearby geothermal park. We lathered up in sunscreen and walked in shade when we could.

Kuirau Park is a free city park and rather nice to walk through. The whole town of Rotorua has the sulpher smell of any geothermally active area, but that’s no reason not to enjoy a visit.

Having reached the end, we turned to head home. Traveling is tiring, and we were ready to go back to our room, turn up the AC, and rest. We took different paths back, and I was lucky enough to spot a new bird!

We did get lost going back, due to looking for the wrong hotel. We found that hotel. Then, in making our way back to the correct hotel, we spotted another interesting park.

We rested, changed, and then met our group again because we were headed out to a Maori cultural evening. This was one of the things I was most looking forward to prior to the trip. Pedro and I had watched lots of YouTube videos learning about Maori culture, and even taught ourselves a haka, by watching lots of tutorial videos.

The trip to the Mitai Maori Village Cultural Experience was not done by Red Carpet Tours, but a Maori organization, which is appropriate. They picked us up at the hotel and drove us to the village and we poured into a large room with approximately 1275 other tour groups, or something like that. We smashed ourselves together at only two assigned tables that we were allowed to sit at, and listened to a woman talk a bit about Maori culture and then she took us outside to view a cultural demonstration. We walked down to a cool, clear creek in some trees, and the refreshing air was marvelous.

We all lined up on both sides of the stream, then waited. A canoe came along the waterway, with Maori warriors in it. They paddled the water and also swung their paddles in the air and sang for us. The wide eyes and tongues out are part of the demonstration, designed to intimidate any challengers.

Then they returned the canoe and disappeared, and we all walked back toward the large seating area and this time went around back where the meat was being pulled from the ground. This is one of my favourite types of meat preparation, and because the results are so delicious, it’s obvious to me why so many cultures have a tradition of roasting their food underground.

We smashed ourselves back into the seating area and then, table by table, were ushered up to the feast. There was a ton of delicious food. We sat like little T-Rex’s with our elbows tucked into our ribs and our hands out front and ate as best we could. I tried as much food as I could fit onto my plate, and everything was delicious. I was so full that I had no interest in attempting to disconnect myself from the human chainlink of elbows and chairs to get dessert. I believe our particular Red Carpet group simply had too many people for their tables, because the other people gathered seemed to be less sardined.

Then our hostess talked more about the culture and answered questions for us. She was kind and had a joyful spirit, and I appreciated that she took a lot of questions from children. Meanwhile people finished up their meals and desserts. Next we went back outside to a different seating area where there was much more room, and we watched a prayer ceremony (no photos), followed by some weapon and tool and dancing demonstrations.

In the dance above, women wore a top that seemed to be woven from reeds, and was tough, like armor. They spun the poi in their hands and whacked the balls against their chest armor to make a loud thump, and thus they beat out a rhythym. It was my favourite of all the dances.

Our favourite little dude of the evening was a kid Pedro and I called Mowgli, because he was built like the actor in the live action film the Jungle Book. After raising my own child to be more knowlegeable in Cherokee ways than I was raised, my eye is caught by young people embracing indigenous culture. That is the way Native people survive, and to see all these young-looking twenty-somethings on the stage was cool, but my heart was warmed to see this boy who looked 10 years old or so. See his face and you cannot doubt that he is fully engaged with being Maori. The photo at the very top is also of this young man.

Our hostess began answering more questions for us, she said, to kill time until it got darker out because next we would be going to see glow worms. Our disadvantage was that it was the peak of summer and we were blessed with 15 hours of sunshine, and even more hours of daylight. But finally it got dark and we all got up to walk back into the cool forest along the creek.

After that, we all climbed back onto our busses and were taken back to our hotels.

The next morning I looked out from our hotel window and spotted more geothermal activity on the horizon. What a special place this is:

At breakfast, we had the best treat! We were visited by a Welcome Swallow.

And off we went once more, to the next fabulous stop.

Bird count: 2 more in Rotorua, making a total of 10 New Zealand birds.

HEY YOU GUYS!! I am home now and have all my comfortable screens and photo editing software. Thoroughly unsatisfied with my previous three posts, of One Tree Hill and Onehunga, of our hike on Rangitoto Island, and of Hobbiton, I have revamped all three of them. The photos you already saw are bigger and clearer now, and there are some new ones that I think show off the places better. I have also added a bird count to those previous posts.