Rotorua Tour

Friday 2 July 2010

Sorry for not posting in a while. I actually went on another trip, but that story will have to be posted on another day.

So back to Rotorua. We got up and were outside at 8:00 for the 8:15 pick up. There were only 5 people on this tour and we were all girls. The tour guide introduced himself as Huru. He is from a major iwi (Moari tribe). The iwi derived from one man who had three wives and one partner (Huru was a descendant from the partner). There are 8 iwis on New Zealand, but there are intermarriages. So many Moari people are a part of several iwis. The guide was quite proud of his heritage and very in tuned to his culture. So it was good to get everything from the Maori perspective.

We started by heading to Wai-O-Tapu, which is a major geothermal place. We went through the biggest man made forest in the southern hemisphere. When we entered the geothermal park, we took a 1.5 Kilometre walking trek (about 1 mile). He showed us the trees for Manuka Honey, leaves that help relieve dysentery or constipation...He showed us all kind of vegetation. He showed us the silver fern which is a major icon in New Zealand. The All Blacks have it as their logo, it is on most souvenirs...

We then saw many geothermal sites, craters, pools that were various colours. It smelled quite "ranky" (those of you who went to Bulgaria should get that word...although, it is in a different context).

The day started off really foggy and hard to see. The colouring became more vibrant when the sun came out and burned off the fog. The Artist's Palette and the Champagne Pool were the most well known. They are the two things that would be on almost every postcard or advertisement for Rotorua. They were quite beautiful. Every once in a while, the guide would touch the water. I didn't want to, but when everyone else did it, of course I did it too. It wasn't hot at all, but felt interesting. Everyone kept saying how soft the water was. I never thought it was soft, but whatever.

After seeing all these pools, we went to the famous Lady Knox Geyser. The geyser always goes off at 10:15 every day, because the rangers encourage it. It would go off naturally, but they do it for tourists. It is quite interesting how they do it. They put a substance like soap in it and it breaks up the surface. Ittakes a little while, but it starts getting higher and higher. It goes up to about 20 metres. It takes about an hour for it to go back down, but we did not stay that long. The story goes that there were these guys who decided to wash their clothes in the water. They did not know the soap would cause the water to react. So when the water shot out, their clothes disappeared, so they disappeared, as well. They later discovered that soap makes the water react.

After all this, we had 1/2 hour to look through a gift shop. It was quite boring and we were ready to leave. So the tour guide took us back to Rotorua where everyone except Mom and I left. Mom and I had the full day tour where as the rest of the girls had a half day tour. So that was interesting. We started at Lake Rotorua where Huru shared various stories and beliefs of the Maori people. It was quite a cultural experience and fun to hear. He showed us a war canoe and explained it. Then he drove us to view other lakes like Blue Lake, Green Lake...We saw Mt. Tarawera. This volcano had 5 major eruptions starting in 1886. 7 cities were buried from the eruptions, but only one was excavated. The rest are considered burial grounds.

We went to the excavated buried village. It was called Te Wairoa. We first went to the museum and looked around. Then we saw some of the buildings and houses that were buried and heard the stories of the people who survived. It was horrible hearing the stories of the people and how they witnessed the death of their family members. One of these stories was a mother who saw her husband die. A beam fell on her to where she couldn't move, and she suffocated her child. It was so sad. There were many other stories, but I won't make this entry too horribly long.

The guide then took us to a walking track where we could take a walk down 150 steps to Wairere Falls. If we wanted to. He didn't seem to know us well. Of course we would do it. It was really beautiful. Then we walked to the van and headed back to the city.

Huru dropped us off at the hostel and we walked to the Government Gardens and found the rose garden and took pictures of the area as the sun set.

It was quite a lovely day. It was very educational for us.