Tamaki Village

Today we left Waitomo at 9am and drove for about ten minutes and stopped at a place to do a half hour Ruakari bush walk that went past the exit we came out of from the cave yesterday.

We got back on the bus and drove until about half 11, when we reached Hobbiton. Hobbiton is the set of the Lord of the Rings filmed where filmed. It was an optional trip but neither Lauren or I where interested enough to pay 95$ to visit. We had lunch and dropped off around 25 people who were doing the trip and headed on to Rotorua.

Rotorua is like a geothermal hot spot.  There is steam coming out of the drains and off a mud pool in the middle of a park we drove past. Its basically due to thw town being situated on the Rotorua Caldera. There is also a big lake.

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Around 4pm we went to Tamaki Village, which in a traditional Maori village. We got off the bus, having chosen a chief of our 'tribe' and were greeted by a dude called Hec. He told us a little about what would be happening and led us into the village. We had to walk in the order - chief, ladies, men. We sat down under a tree, seated women at the back and men and chief at the front and Hec gave a speech in Maori, welcoming us on to their land and also sang a song. Our chief then made a speech and we gad to perform a song in return. It was a chant inspired by a scene in the Wolf of Wall Street film. If you've seen the film you will know what I mean.  The chiefs then performed what is called (but may not be spelt correctly) a hungi, not to be confused with a hangi (also probably not spelled correctly). This is a Maori greeting where the two chiefs touch noses, sharing a breath of life. After this we went for afternoon tea.

Afternoon tea was amazing. There was shortbread, chocolate biscuits, banana cake and deep fried bread/doughnut things. Before we ate the food was blessed and then we tucked in. The doughnut things were really good. I had 2.

After the afternoon tea, we split into two groups and headed off for different activities. The first activity was some games that involved throwing and catching sticks around a circle to a chant. We didn't managed to go a whole chant without someone dropping one. It was quite hard as you had to throw the stick to your right and catch the one coming to you. To make it harder, every now and then you had to catch the stick from the person next but one to you, which caused minor chaos. After this the two groups met up and we learnt a song to sing after dinner.

Before we could have dinner, we attended a welcome ceremony, where members of the Maori tribe welcomed us after arrving by canoe, and performed a ritual to ascertain whether or not we came in peace. This involved the chief recieivng a gift from the natural earth while tribe warriors danced and moved threateningly around. The chief had to keep their eyes on the warrior who placed the gift on the ground whilst collecting the gift and returning to their place without turning their backs on the warriors. All the while other warriors were dancing round. We were not allowed to smile or laugh whilst the warriors performed. After this was complete and we could relax and smile we were shown, in tribes, different aspects on Maori life in different little huts set around a path. There was 5 tribes, totaling about 150 people. We were told about things such as migration and the haka. We also were told about tattoos and how they related to gender equality.

Maori culture believed in equality. When women were giving birth to their first born,  every time they had a contraction, a man would get a stroke of a tattoo on his leg. In those days the tattoos were done by splitting open the skin and allowing it to scar several times before the ink was added. The women felt the pain of childbirth and the men felt the pain of tattoos.  

After we had been to all the little huts we saw where our dinner was cooked. It was cooked in an underground pit, called a hangi, and we saw it being raised out of the ground. It was pretty impressive and smelled amazing when they lifted it out.

Finally, one last thing before we had dinner, we watched dancing and singing by the tribe, which was really awesome and they performed the haka for us. It was a fantastic experience.

And if everything we had experienced already hadn't been good enough,  we were fed an amazing buffet style dinner of roast lamb, potatoes,  carrots, kurama, chicken, salad, fish and mussels, and pudding. I didn't have any of the fish or mussels but the rest was amazing.

After dinner, we performed our song, the men on our tribe performed the haka and the hosts sang some songs. Then all the day guests went home. We were staying over night though and had the rest of the evening free. We went and sat next to the bonfire toasting marshmallows and chatting. It was a really nice evening and the whole day was just fantastic. It was so interesting to see their culture and way of life and their dances and the haka were amazing to see.

The room we slept in had 21 people in it, in 2 rows of beds. It was all painted and had wood carvings which was pretty cool.

Tomorrow morning we'll be getting up for breakfast and then heading back to Rotorua. 

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The next morning we got up at 7:15, packed up and had breakfast which was cereal and toast. Then left around 9am back to Rotorua.