We felt it was quite important to learn a little bit about the history and culture of New Zealand so joined an organised tour of a living, working Maori village, now get your tongue roun this, Whakarewarewa. Obviously the village is set up in such a way that it works as a tourist attraction during the day but after 5pm it reverts back to an ordinary residential village. I say ordinary if you can call having silica terraces, bubbling hot pools and geysers in your front garden ordinary. Our guide was very informative and very proud of his heritage explaining about the communial cooking, bathing and meeting houses. As this village was built around an area of thermal activity the residents used this energy wherever possible, streaming the water off the hot pool to fill up the communial baths and cooking in communial haki ovens- a pit in the ground filled with hot stones, the food gets covered with wet sheets, is covered by a lid and cooks in the steam that is formed
Following the tour there was a performance of song and dance by the young men and women of the village. The ladies danced with a Poi, a ball attached to a cord, swinging it backwards and forwards, hitting themselves on the arms to create a beat. The men performed a haka, the traditional war dance which if you are a rugby fan you will have seen being danced by the All Blacks, complete with protruding eyes and tongues.
So my friends, for now Kia Ora
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