Maori Experience

After leaving New Plymouth we embarked on another mammoth drive across to Taupo. We saw glimpses of Mount Taranaki again and also the snow-capped volcanoes of the Tongariro National Park - Mount Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe & Tongariro. The scenery we drove through varied quite a lot; the most interesting was through the 'Forgotten Valley' which ended up being an unsealed road that the car struggled with somewhat! We'd have probably got to Taupo in 2 hours tops on the M1 but as it happened it was after dark when we reached the lakeside town (though we did see an awesome panoramic sunset en route).
The following morning was beautiful and we saw how popular Taupo is as a holiday/weekend town - there's fishing and water sports as well as easy access to the ski fields. It was a relatively short drive to Rotorua (via pretty dramatic Hooker waterfalls) and it was a destination I'd been really looking forward to - mainly for the Maori cultural experiences on offer as well as the vast amount of geothermal activity. The latter means the town hums with a strong sulphurous odour which can be quite over-powering - depending on which way the wind is blowing! First we went to Whakarewarewa Thermal Reserve. Here we had a tour of a the NZ Maori Arts & Crafts Institute which included seeing Maori carving & weaving and Maori buildings. The guide was very enlightening and we came away feeling like we understood significantly more about the people & the culture than we had before - and had had some misconceptions addressed. The other aspect of the village were the goothermal attractions - boiling mud pools (I bought some for a face mask!) and various geysers, some of which shot superheated water upto 30 metres out of the ground.
In the evening we visited the Tamaki Maori Village - a very commercial Maori cultural experience though excellent nevertheless. You are not allowed to drive to the village; part of the experience is being collected by coach from your accomodation and getting to know your bus driver & fellow visitors. The idea is that your bus is like the 'waka' - the boats that the Maori's first arrived on. Our bus driver's name was Ngata (or 'nutter') and he had a remarkable ability to remember people's names & various aspects of personal information and he knew a stack of songs from every country that visitors came from so he could sing to us on the way home! The most random English song he knew was 'On Ilkley Moor bar 'tat'!
When we arrived we (well, our elected chief of our 'waka') were challenged by a Maori warrior in traditional dress and then roamed around the woods seeing various demonstrations of Maori warfare, dancing, singing etc. We then saw a 'concert' (including the 'haka') and then ate a traditional 'hangi' - food cooked in hot rocks in an earth oven. The highlight of the evening for me was another tribe from Hawkes Bay who had actually come to visit the experience. They were invited to perform one of their tribes songs and the fact that everybody from the tribe got up and joined in and it was completely unrehearsed made it all seem much more authentic to me.
On the Sunday morning we headed back towards Taupo so that we could visit another goethermal area with spectacular geyser that they 'set off' at 10am every morning. It's timed so well because they pour soap flakes into the mouth of the geyser which lowers the surface tension & causes the superheated water to erupt. There were also other geothermal pools in very pretty colours due to the different mineral deposits, but once you've seen one, you've seen them all!
Next stop the Waitomo caves; here we visited caves with impressive limestone formations and an incredible glowworm cave. Glowworms are only found in NZ & Oz. At one time in their life-cycle they emit light which attracts insects into the cave, they then catch the insects using tiny treads they have spun and which hang from the roof into the cave. We travelled through the main body of the cave on a boat in silence (any noise causes the worms to 'turn off' their light!) and it really was quite amazing.
We stayed in Hamilton over night but there was nothing of note there , then we headed onto Auckland.