Alex and I left the coast & cute little Napier to head to the center of the NZ, yet another treasure chest of amazing things to do. We didn’t quite have time to drive by “Mt. Doom”, which is in Tongariro National Park, but instead we stopped for a quick lunch in Taupo, on the shores of Lake Taupo. It was yet another lovely lake and a decent town (we had sushi! hooray for something different!), but we knew Rotorua held more promise. Just outside of Taupo, however, were some waterfalls I didn’t want to miss. My navigator was a bit off her game, so it took us a time or two to find them, but man am I glad we found Huka Falls. SO, one of NZ’s biggest rivers all of the sudden turns about 90 degrees through a narrow tunnel-like canyon before barreling over a small cliff. It’s not a long drop or anything, but the raw power of the water you witness is really amazing. You get to cross over the canyon before getting right up to the edge of the cliff, and we just couldn’t stop staring at the rushing water.
At this point we were both practically hypnotized, and quite warm (hot day), and somehow that last bit of drive up to Rotorua was lovely, but also a bit soporific, so we pulled off at a campsite for a quick power nap. Honestly, it’s not like we had some amazing drunk-fest late into the evening, but maybe we were just feeling our age! 😉 Humiliating, but funny. We got moving again and quickly enough we could smell Rotorua coming. So, Lake Rotorua is a fascinating place, and it is basically a giant hole into the center of the earth or something. There have been tons of volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and other violent actions, and you can absolutely smell the sulfur everywhere. There are tons of hot springs all over the place, and for some reason, it’s also become the cultural capital for all things Maori. Super cool little town, if you can bear the smell (which you do slowly get used to, I suppose). Here’s the lake from our fancy hotel Alex had found for us:
I’ll be honest, it was pretty, but it REALLY didn’t smell good. But, moving on – the Maori people. So, re-watching Whale Rider, and listening to the guides on my whale watching trip had given me a bit of a different perspective on them. Before arriving to this part of the world, all I knew about Maori were they were big scary tattooed warrior people who stuck their tongues out with big eyes and yelled. This is SO not all there is to them, as I learned. Neither Alex or I were all that keen on seeing a performance or anything (because both of us were hopelessly ignorant I guess), but they actually had one w/dinner at our hotel. We debated back and forth, but decided we should at least check it out. Well, other than being in a hotel ballroom filled with bus-loads of Asian tourists, it was fascinating! The ceremony you always see is usually a Haka dance, which is a welcoming thing. I can’t explain it all, but it’s all very meaningful, and the singing is actually quite beautiful & moving. We really probably should have sprung for one of the “shows” around that were actually in one of the “authentic” prayer houses, but this did the trick. They even pulled up some voluteers to learn different parts… the men got to do the yelling tongue thing, the ladies did the spinning thing. Ours was way harder (of course).