Day 16: Rotorua (Geothermal Baby!)


Today we got up at a sane hour, since Eli’s started to feel under the weather (congested, tired, and achy). It’s a good thing we had a relaxed day planned.

There’s a hotspot under Rotorua, which makes it very geothermally active, and a great place to see all sorts of great geology. Even feeling lousy, Eli enjoyed himself here.

We started with a tour of a modern-day Mauri village, the native people to this area. They lived in these areas originally, cooking their food in the thermal vents, and bathing and cooking in the thermal pools. And treating their skin regularly with the mud from the mud pools!  Below is a picture of them cooking their corn for dinner in one of the pools in their village. The village itself is one of their ancestral villages, and members of the tribe still live there, but it’s been modernized in many ways, so resembles a cross between an ancestral and modern village.

Cooking corn in a thermal pool

Cooking corn in a thermal pool

After our village tour, we went back to Rotorua to get a tour of the Jade factory, and watch them make Jade pieces. Unfortunately, our tour company got confused, and the jade-maker takes Sundays off, so we had to miss this tour. But we did watch a video on Jade carving, and browsed their shop. Then we wandered around the district a while, and stopped at a craft fair. It was exactly like craft fairs on the Cape, with retired folks selling nice hand-made stuff for prices that were way too low 🙂  Unfortunately, we doubted our ability to get pottery home safely, with 10 more days in NZ and 5 more flights, because they had some beautiful pieces. We also took a walk around a large lake in the area, through a wetland where we saw lots of great birds.

Our final activity of the night was a Maori village demonstration and dinner. This was at a different “village”, which was specially created to mimic the look and layout of their ancestral villages. We got to see the ritual for visiting tribes, and a show of native songs and dances. Then they served us a buffet dinner that was cooked below ground in the traditional manner, which was quite tasty and reminiscent of Thanksgiving dinner (potatoes, sweet potatoes, chicken, lamb, gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce…). Then we wandered around the village before heading back. Our tour guide was a hoot, and we did karaoke on the busride back (with lots of Christmas carols).  I (Mel) decided that Maori wood figures are nearly as good as gargoyles, and photographed some. Interestingly, many had their tongues sticking out, which was a sign of something or other… if it was sticking out crooked it was a sign of welcome.

After all this excitement, we drove for a while toward Wai-o-tomo, but it didn’t end up having anywhere to stay! So we drove onward until we found a caravan park, and stayed their for the night.


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