Rotorua: boiling mudd and hitch hiking

 We had to make a quick stop at the grocery store before we headed to Rotarua, and we had a good amount of time to do so.  Jacko, our couch surfing host, said he would chip in for about half of the food but we shouldn’t come empty handed.  Also on his profile it said he loved trying new things and ethnic foods.  So we went with chili.  It’s a cheap southern classic and delcious.  No problem.  After we picked up all the shopping we caught the bus to Rotorua.   

 Jacko hadn’t responded to my text yet when we got there.  So I tried calling and then went for the mandatory wait time before checking into a hostel.  When I called Jacko after about an hour later he said he was still in Wellington.  A family problem had come up when he was down there delaying his return to Rotorua until much later that night.  I told him not to worry and that we would just check into a backpackers.  He said he would pick us up in the morning.

Luckily there was Rotorua downtown backpackers right around the corner and it cost $20, nice!  They also had free pasta, free soup, free coffee and tea and the best part free internet!  Hell yes!  Free anything is good for me.  So we settled down for the night and got ourselves some soup and rolls for dinner.  Perfect.  We were both tuckered out, so we didn’t do any sightseeing that night.  There was a park we could have gone to see kiwi birds and possums.  But sleep sounded way better.

fried bread

  

We got up fairly early and had some coffee and granola bars.  Ashlie had a few things she had to sort out and was worried Jacko would come by too early.  It was the weekend, of course he was going to sleep in.  And he did.  He called just as Ashlie was finishing her phone calls, and then we got to meet Jacko with his beautiful daughter.  Both parties were very talkative, I enjoyed the flow of conversation.  He took us to the Saturday market and treated us to some meat on a stick.  I bought myself some spinach (I was feeling green deprived) and nibbled on that while we walked around.  Ashlie and I also got to try some Maori food.  It was called fried bread and its basically a deep fried ball of dough that you put jam, butter and cream in while hot.  It was delicious.  

After this little bit of fun Jacko informed us that he wanted some family time with his daughter.  He hadn’t seen her in a few days.  So he gave us a hand drawn map with a city walk on it.  He explained if we followed the map we would see most of Rotorua’s best sights.  The walk took about three hours and we should call him when we were done to meet up.  Ashlie and I didn’t mind this and he took our bags back to his house making sure we knew where he lived as well.  

So we started the walk in the park and that was pretty cool by itself.  There was boiling mud, steamy holes and weird colored rocks everywhere.  We stopped by a café on the water front and enjoyed a latte and talked about how smelly this place was, but we could get used to it. 

 We had to double back at this point, because we realized that we had missed the living Maori village.  So we went back to check it out.  It was pretty cool, all red, black and white.  There were not very many people around, but looked interesting.

 After that we walked past a white water lake and into the center of town.  Apparently this lake is not too safe to swim in.  All the volcanic activity in the area has left deposits of sulfur in the water and it’s quite warm.

Rotorua was having their 50^th Marathon that day.  So there were people everywhere.  Ashlie even rooted some of the runners on.  In town we found a coin save (like a dollar general) and I got a hat and Ashlie got a few things as well.  Then it was off the Jacko’s.

When we got there he put us right to work making dinner.  It was easy breezy.  Ashlie made it too spicy for Jacko’s daughter, but he said she was picky anyway.   When we all had finished our chili with rice and fresh bread, Jacko randomly asked me to make a dessert.  “What do you have?” “Apples” “I can make you an apple pie!”  And I did.  No recipe, apple pie from scratch.  I wonder how often he gets that response from couch surfers?

 After apple pie making, while we were having a few beers and Jacko told us about the business he is starting.  He’s going to be a tour guide.  He is almost ready to start.  The walk that we had done is going to be his tour.  It's just for people who only have a few hours and don’t necessarily want to spend an arm and a leg to go see all the sights.  Many of the attractions in Rotorua cost over a $100.  Ashlie and I were discussing whether or not it was worth it earlier in the day.  We both thought it was a great idea and told him to keep in touch so we could help him out.  

We devised a plan for our morning.  We knew the bus schedule pretty well and it was not forgiving.  If we took the bus we could go in the morning and not see anymore of Rotorua, but if we decided to hitch hike we could defiantly see a show or something else that was equally as cool.  So we decided to go to Te puia in morning.  It had a show and geysers. Kick ass!  

carved spirit

We walked to Te puia, it took about 45 minutes from the information center where we had booked tickets.  The first thing we saw when we walked in were the many guardians of the different realms.  The Maori spirits that represent different aspects of nature.

After that we wandered over to the meeting house and got to see was the welcoming ceremony.  This was part of the show we booked.  One tribe member needed to be accepted by the other tribe.  We had to choose a chief, so a older Kiwi gentleman took the roll grudgingly (his wife volunteered him).  The warriors of the Maori tribe did some intimidation tactics, but then left a leaf on the ground to be taken by our leader.  Our leader accepted the leaf.  The Maori then burst into song and we entered the meeting house.  Once inside our leader and the tribe's leader press noses, like Eskimo kisses, and we were considered family.  At this point we are welcome into the traditional meeting house.

welcoming cerimony

Once inside we were introduced to a wealth of Maori culture.  So much so I don’t really have the words to describe.  We got to see traditional singing that sounded like opera.  The women were very talented.  We saw and participated in Poi, a dance with soft balls attached to the end of ropes.  This is meant to improve hand and eye coordination as well as overall fitness.  Ashlie and I made fools of ourselves on stage with about 30 other women, but it was fun.  I was never good at synchronized anything.  It takes me a lot of practice to do anything like that correctly.  My favorite part of the show was when the men were called up to do the Haka, the Maori war dance.  I loved seeing the guys do the Pūkana (funny face).  It was so much fun.

singing

poi dancing

name of the Maori village we visited. Damn that's long!

After the show we got a tour.  We headed off to see how the traditional weaving and carving was done.  Both were used as a written language.

puipui

The piupiu, named for the sound it creates when worn, takes 4-6 weeks to make.  This skirt is made from flax.  The flax must be soaked and dyed to make the patterns and set the bead-like weave.

Random fact anyone? A common phrase you hear from the Maori is “The uglier the handsomer.”  This is because the uglier you were the more likely you were able to defeat your enemies and scare the living daylights out of them.  This made you valuable to the tribe, increasing your prowess.  

We saw several meeting houses.  Inside these houses the tribe can get together and do carving, weaving and other things like meetings and what not.  This is a community space as well as a spiritual space.  You must take off your shoes to enter.  Reminds me a bit of Korea.

Tattoos were traditionally carved into the skin with a chisel type tool.  Women often had chin and lip tattoos, and this is now reemerging with the younger generation.   Men would usually have tattoos on their cheeks as well as limbs. Only the chief was supposed to have a full face tattoo, but now a days you often see many men with full face tattoos.

We also got to see a kiwi bird!  We couldn’t take a picture, so I stole some from google.  But they were way bigger than I thought they were.  For some reason I thought they were the size of a chicken.  Boy was I wrong. More like three times that size.. okay maybe two.

 The enclosure we saw them in was night time during the day and day at night.  Kiwi birds are nocturnal, so they did this to help visitors view them.  I don’t know how I feel about disturbing their natural patterns, but lots of people want to see them, so I get it. 

 And now onto random facts: When the female is laying 60%  of her body weight is the egg. The male kiwi bird incubates the eggs.  Most kiwi birds live to 60 in captivity but only 30 in wild. The population has greatly decreased over the years because of non native species invading.

After all our New Zealand cultural bits and pieces we went to see the thermal area attached.  In Rotorua there is an underground lake heated by magma.  This is what makes the thermal area and geysers.  People used to use the boiling water to cook food and steam the meat.  European used to come and lounge in the hot mud pools as well, for their health and beauty treatments.  I personally think that’s a bit dangerous, but I wouldn’t mind having a boiled egg out of this stuff.

One of the main attractions at Te puia was the geyser.  It went off about once an hour, and boy did we see it go.  

 

geyser at Te puia, Pohutu

Besides the geyser there was lots of other beautiful things to see.

a sapphire lake

boiling mud

volcanic beauty

 It was a good decision to see more of Rotorua.  I'm so glad we stayed for the morning.

random beautiful pictures from Rotorua

So the plan was to start hitching around one, but we really didn’t get out there until 2:45ish.  The walk back from Te Puia was about an hour.  I forget about how long it takes to get places without a car. We also said goodbye to Jacko and he insisted we had lunch with him before we left.  He was such a sweetie.

 The weather was beautiful, so we had that on our side for hitching.  Also there had just recently been a marathon in Rotorua.  It also was the end of Easter school break so kids and family all had to be heading back home.  All these things were great odds to get us to national park in four hours time.  Despite all that the beginning of our hitching was a bit discouraging.  We waited a good 45 minutes before someone picked us up. 

citroen

 Our first ride was a lovely older man in a 80’s citroen.  I had never seen one before and was fascinated.  This guy was amazing.  At first he didn’t talk much, but then we got him going on the local landscape and the thermal activity and the guy was like an encyclopedia.  He just chatted away about the thermal power plant, the hot springs over there, the faults and the dangers of living in Christchurch.  It was great.  He couldn’t take us all the way to where we were going, but about halfway.  This was more than good for us.  He dropped us off near a busy roundabout and wished us luck.  

The next lady that picked us up was a marathon runner from Wellington.  She had hiked the Tongariro crossing and gave us tips and talked about other great places to hike as well.  She took us another half way, if she went to National Park (our final destination), it would have been an extra hour out of her way. 

 This time we were in the middle of nowhere.  The nearest town would be quite a walk, and the sun was starting to go down.  I knew this was going to be the hardest part of our hitch hiking, but we were so close!  I joked around and tried to make Ashlie and I smile as much as I could.  We were super lucky in that the 2^nd car that passed us picked us up and brought us another half way.  They were working at the Sir Edmond Hillary outdoor pursuits center, working with kids .  

Now we were now a mere 25 minutes from our accommodation!  But it was dark.  We both thought that surely people will be more inclined to pick up two young women, freezing and hitching in the dark.  We were dead wrong.  No one stopped and some people even flashed us with their bights.  I’m not sure why, but it wasn’t nice.  

 Eventually we all but gave up hope and called our accommodation to see what we could do.  They came and picked us up, the dear souls.  They totally didn’t have to do that.  Then after we were waiting for them a truck doubled back.  He said he thought he saw someone sitting on the side of the road and should go back and check to make sure that we were ok.  That was at 6:29… we said we would give up on hitching at 6:30, but had been despairing because of so many cars passing without even slowing down and the cold and the dark.  It was good to see that there are kind people in the world.  Windy picked us up in the shuttle van about 20 minutes later.  She is looking after the lodge for her daughter, who was on vacation.  She said she does it every year.  They live in Australia usually, but have been staying in NZ more and more to help her daughter out.