Did you miss me? Did you think I had fallen off the blogging bandwagon again? Truth is, we have just spent a very enjoyable 5 days at a digital scrapbooking retreat with a bunch of Kiwi and Aussie gals, which was the primary purpose of the trip to NZ in the first place. But today the ‘Scrapcamp’ ended, and we are back on the road.
Maketu Beach
We had a quick stop at beautiful and historic Maketu Beach on the Bay of Plenty. It is the traditional landing site of Te Arawa, one of the seven original waka (seafaring canoes) that brought Māori to Aotearoa around 1250 CE.
Redwoods Walk
Giant sequoias and California redwoods were planted on the outskirts of Rotorua at the beginning of the 20th century as part of a programme to assess the viability of exotic trees for commercial forestry in New Zealand. Apparently, they grow faster here than in the US, due to the rich volcanic soil, favourable climate and high rainfall, and there is now a 6-hectare stand of Redwoods near Rotorua which is protected. We had a lovely 30-minute stroll among the tall trees, looking particularly picturesque in the afternoon sunlight.
Mitai Māori Village
On the advice of our Kiwi friends, we had booked into the Māori Cultural Experience at Mitai Māori Village. As promised, it was a truly excellent evening. There were presentations explaining some Māori culture and traditions, including a walk (in the dark) to see warriors paddling a waka (war canoe) down the stream, a performance of dance including demonstrations of traditional instruments and practices ending with a haka.
After the show we enjoyed a fabulous hāngī– a traditional Māori feast. “Our hāngī earth oven kai (food) includes meat, chicken, kumara and much more. The hāngī is cooked in an earth-oven, a hole 1-2m into the ground, the baskets of kai are placed on hot stones at the bottom of a hāngī pit. The kai is then covered to trap the heat, the steam and heat from heated hāngī stones infuses the kai with delicious earthy flavours while it cooks for 3-4 hours.”
After dinner we walked through the forest again to see an ancient spring and some glow-worms. All up an excellent evening!
Glowworms
For anyone who is keen, here are some videos of tonight’s performances:
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