Rotorua; Kuirau Lake & the Tamaki Maori Village

We were again slow this morning and were only just out of the campsite by 10. This evening we were booked into the Tamaki Maori Village at Rotorua, which is voted in the ‘top 7 cultural experiences’ on tripadvisor apparently. We’d booked in to the Blue Lake campsite again (we stayed here on our way South a few weeks ago) from which we’d be getting picked up at 4 to begin our experience so we had the bulk of the day to fill with activities. As we hadn’t made it in to Rotorua before we decided to do just that and parked up at Kuirau park where there is some natural hot springs (that are free to see unlike the rest). 

Kuirau Lake

They were very impressive. Random bouts of steam appearing from in between rock formations and bubbling, belching mud pools, all with the pervasive smell of sulphurous farts. Kuirau lake itself is the most impressive having a thick back of steam rising from it, completely obscuring the opposite bank less than 10 metres away. Although we’d got lunch in the backpacks ready to eat we didn’t fancy sitting in a sulphurous, stinking fog while munching on our wraps so we wandered back to a place without any pools and ate watching the seabirds fight over scraps on the ground. We then headed over to Blue Lake to park up and get ready for the evening. 

One of the Chiefs being greeted into the Village

We were picked up and dropped off at the Tamaki Maori Centre in central Rotorua where we had a short film to watch about the Maori people and were then transferred to our ‘waka’ (bus) for the journey over to the village itself. On the bus we had a brilliant guide who taught us a bit about the Maori culture and played a few games, including choosing our chief. For the experience the bus you arrive in is your ‘tribe’ (ours was named Tui) and we were led by a chief (one of the other tourists). When we got there we had a traditional greeting challenge (men shouting and sticking their tongues out a lot) to which we were under strict instructions to not smile, laugh or sit down as this would be inflammatory in the Maori culture. Of course someone did sit down and were hastily told off. After successfully passing the challenge we entered the village and were shown various aspects of Maori culture, including woodworking, the female percussive instrument (ball on the end of a string) which Amelia volunteered to demonstrate expertly and only hit herself on the head twice, the ‘hangi’ (cooking a meal underground on hot stones), a traditional stick game which I volunteered and lost in the final round because I cheated, and the Hakka. We then moved through to the main event, the hangi meal. Everything that they cooked underground was arrayed as a buffet, which included lamb, chicken, kumara, carrots, various pieces of seafood accompanied with other veggies, gravies, sauces and accompaniments, and finished with endless pavlova. A truly delicious end to the day. 

The Chief

Over dinner we even got talking to an American pair, one of which seemed like he was on a voyage of discovering himself and just about to start working in a hostel in Auckland. The evening ended with a song performed by a visiting school to say thanks to the village team and a fun bus ride back in which we all sang songs by whatever nationality you were. The UK were abysmal unfortunately. 

After that indulgence we were full, happy and very tired so headed straight for bed. Another excellent day.