NZ Land Logs 7, Year 2: North Island–Rotorua
Date: Sunday, February 25, 2007
Weather in Rotorua: Absolutely Beautiful—Sunny and Warm
Location: Rotorua, New Zealand

We left Auckland this morning headed for Rotorua, the heartland of Maori culture. Our plan was to take the main highway down the center of the island, but when we looked at the map, we decided to head over to the east coast and take in a little shore scenery. Somehow we missed a turn and ended up taking a back road down the center of the island, but it did take us through Matamata which was the site of Hobbiton in The Lord of the Rings. It must have been fate that we missed the turn and even though we didn’t stop and tour the actual Hobbiton film site, we did enjoy the very English looking countryside. After leaving Hobbiton, we stopped in a town called Tirau. This town’s claim to fame is that it has gone little overboard in using excess corrugated iron to actually construct buildings that look like a sheep and a dog. All of the town signs were also made of corrugated iron. It was a great lunch stop, but I’m afraid we weren’t all that impressed with the ‘artwork.’

Our next stop was Rotorua, our destination for today. We made our first stop at a Holiday Park Campground where we had reserved a cabin for the night. There are Holiday Parks all over New Zealand and they have the reputation of having very basic, but consistently friendly people and clean facilities. The Cosy Cottage Holiday Park where we are staying lives up to this reputation. We checked in and immediately took a walk down by Lake Rotorua to observe some of the geothermal activity for which this area is famous. We didn’t see any of the bubbling mud pools, but we did see steaming holes. We also saw hundreds of black swans on the lake. It is beautiful here and we can’t wait until tomorrow to further explore the geothermal activity.

After our walk, a drive through town brought us to the Rotorua Museum. The building is built in Tutor style and is surrounded by beautiful flower gardens and well manicured bowling lawns. In back of the museum we saw a huge geothermal energy plant. It is good to see that the Kiwis are capturing some of this pent up steam to produce energy.

We spent our evening at Tamaki Maori Village. This was a wonderful introduction to the Maori people, the indigenous people of New Zealand. The Maori are Polynesians who came here from the islands of Tahiti over a thousand years ago. Up until then, the only mammals in New Zealand were a type of bat. Currently, the Maori make up 15 per cent of the population of the country and 35 per cent of the population in the Rotorua area. This is Maori country, and we just couldn’t stop here without visiting one of the cultural villages and attending a traditional hanga (feast). As part of the experience, we were picked up at our campground by a Tamaki Maori Village bus and we were greeted by our host and driver for the evening, Ngata. It was a grand evening made even grander by Ngata’s wonderful personality. We were on a bus with people from Holland, Sweden, Switzerland, Israel, Canada, Germany, Norway, Ireland, Scotland, England, and the US of A. Ngata knew all of our names and he was knowledgeable about every country. He could sing songs in the native language of each country with a perfect accent for each different language and was quite entertaining, all the while teaching us about the Maori culture. Ngata was a wonderful example of Maori beliefs. One of their sayings is, “Ki mai koe ki a au, he aha te mea nui tenei ao: He tangata, he tangata, he tangata.” This translates as, “If you should ask me what is the greatest thing in the world, the answer would be: It is people, it is people, it is people.” We witnessed the Maori war dance, the world famous haka, and the scary looks a Maori warrior would have used to scare his enemy, but in their hearts these are a very gentle and loving people. Alan was chosen as one of five chiefs for the evening which was a highlight for us which topped off a perfect evening.

Before heading further south, we will explore more of the geothermal activity in the area. The pictures of the places we will explore look like Yellowstone, so we are excited to see more of this. When we leave here, we head to the land of Ithilien and Mordor. Can’t wait.

070225 NZ Auckland to Rotorua

070225 NZ Tamaki Maori Village