Kia Ora

Thursday 8th March 2007
I always thought it was a brand of orange juice, but Kia Ora means Good Health or Hello in Maori. We had a real Maori day today, starting with a visit to the Whakarewarewa (yes, I had to check the spelling) Geothermal Valley which includes Te Puia, a village based around the Maori Institute of Culture Arts and Crafts. We walked through the valley which has the greatest concentration of geysers, bubbling mud pools and hot mineral pools, although they are all over Rotorua – you just see steam coming up from places as you drive around the town. Apparently this is because of the tectonic plates being close together, heating the rocks beneath the ground, very very hot, so that as water seeps through steam builds up as if in a pressure cooker, then escapes in the form of the most amazing geysers It really is quite spectacular. If the tectonic plates were even closer together this would be an earthquake area, and in fact they have lots of minor tremors all the time. The reason the town stinks of rotten eggs (although you get used to it and hardly notice it after a few hours) is because of the sulphur deposits left behind on the rocks. It also makes this a centre for mud baths and spa treatments although we didn’t bother with those. At Te Puia, there was also a Maori welcome ceremony and concert which was very good.Then this evening we went on a coach trip to Tamaki Maori Village – we hadn’t really planned to do both tours, but had chosen the first because of the geysers and had booked Tamaki before we realised the similarity. However, we were glad we did both as they were very different. Tamaki was about 10km out of town, in a beautiful forest area and although the ceremony and concert were similar to this afternoon’s it was in a better setting and included a traditional hangi meal. Hangi is food cooked the traditional Maori way, steamed for hours in baskets on white hot stones in a pit in the ground. It was delicious. So a very interesting day and although aimed at us tourists, it did give us some insight into how the Maori here are keeping the culture going, along with real integration.