Rotorua and the Maori Experience

After Hobbiton, we were already pretty overexcited. The Maori experience in Rotorua was on the agenda for the evening and we had heard amazing reviews.

The Maori experience does exactly what it's called, and gives you an insight into how the Maoris lived, the background of their long historical culture and luckily for us... what they ate. The evening consists of small workshops and fun activities all set up in a wild woodland area, and ends with a huge traditional old fashioned Maori cooked feast.

With the Maori experience, there is also an option to stay over at the Maori village in their unique accommodation for the night, something that is currently only exclusively available to Kiwi Experience. This of course comes at an extra cost though, and as the evening was fairly pricey for our travel budget at the time, and as the last few days had been eventful we decided not to do the stay over trip, but stay at Base hostel, a chain we were becoming very familiar with.

A few of our buddies on the coach did the stay over trip, so they were taken to the Maori village earlier in the day to do some extra activities, workshops and also to have ample time to learn a song they would perform at the dinner, in among a few other extra Maori things!

We got to Rotorua late afternoon, so had a few hours to explore the place before embarking on the evenings experience. 

The first thing we noticed about Rotorua, was the awful smell! In Maori, Rotorua is called "Whangapipiro" which means an evil smelling place. Rotorua is full of sulpherous geysers so the whole place stinks constantly of eggs! A smell we were actually now pretty familiar with after spending a fair amount of time in shared accommodation. Opposite our hostel there were a few of these smelly geysers just casually in the park (and were not talking about the local tramps) so we went over to have a look at the bubbling swamps of mud.

The weather wasn't great that day so our trip was cut a bit short, and we were slightly sad to not be able to take advantage of the swimming pool our hostel had. (David, in particular, who was adamant he'd be able to make the jump from our balcony into the pool) something we gladly manged to persuade him was a terrible idea. There is actually huge amounts to do in Rotorua which we didn't get to experience. They have luging, zorbing and white water rafting, so it is actually a bit of an activity hub.

After our short smelly walk, the Maori Experience was upon us, and we waited at the bus stop just down the road to be picked up by the tour company.

As soon as we got on, the experience started, as our lovely slightly kooky lady bus driver nominated a guy at the back of the bus to be a chief leader of our bus. He was there with his wife and baby, and also his 4 year old daughter who was so proud he was chosen to be chief!

The bus driver explained that when we got the village, the Maori's would do a presentation or war dance as we were outsiders coming in. Our chief, along with four other men who were chosen from other buses had to make a peace offering in order for us to be let in.

When we got to the Maori village we met up with all of Kiwi Experience group who had spent the day there, and all was calm. The set was fairly simple. Set in a real forest with a few Maori statues around some fire and a faint echo of slightly unsettling music. As a warning we were told not to laugh at the traditional Maori dance, as they often pull funny faces, make funny noises and do a number of different moves aiming to intimidate any potential rivals/newcomers i.e. US! laughing at this, whether it be nervous or otherwise is actually seen as very disrespectful to the Maori community.

Shortly after, the appointed chiefs from each bus took to the floor, one of them being Sam from our Kiwi Experience group. Some incredibly light footed Maori's came darting out of the woods after a war cry through a large conk shell. Wielding their weapons, tattoos and stinky faces they did their performance. They were actually quite intimidating and we found it was indeed nervous laughing we were trying to stifle. In the video below, you see our friend Sam pick up the fern leaf the Maori's leave as an offering.

The chiefs successfully made their peace offering to the Maori chief, by pressing together their noses, and we were let into the village. PHEW! The little girl whose dad was the chief representing our bus looked like she was going to explode with happiness as her Dad had been a hero!

Once they dropped the characters of Maori tribe members, the people were so friendly and welcoming, and beckoned in a few of the children who were slightly scared. We ventured into the forest where there were lots of small stations set up in between flickering campfires and traditional music. We were encouraged to get involved in the activities and learn about Maori culture. The activities were extremely informative, fun and some of them quite challenging. They ranged from Maori warrior training, traditional dance, music, tribal tattooing and the most popular one... the chance to learn the hukka.

Everyone was queuing up to learn the dance, but sadly as it is traditionally done by men, the girls had to stand and watch them. The boys gave it a good effort and did all the funny faces too, and that was something the girls could join in on

After all the excitement, dancing, running around, and facial straining..... we finally got to the bit we were most excited for, the Maori banquet! 

We were shown how for many thousands of years the Maoris would traditionally cook food underground in heated holes they dug from the ground and filled with hot coals and ash. these were laden with more meats, treats and sweet potato than you could ever hope for and had been deliciously slow roasting for hours.

dribbling from a mixture of the tantalizing smell, and over exerting our facial muscles, we eagerly awaited the dinner and were seated in a small auditorium. While the food was prepared in the grand hall, we were treated to a short film about historical Maori culture which was proceeded by a fantastic musical and theatrical performance once again by the Maori tribe. This was incredible and amazing to see/hear.

After about 45 minutes we were seated in large groups in the main hall, all to be amazed by the copious amounts of freshly cooked food on display. Needless to say we all ate our selves silly until we felt sick. Tom was even reminded by a staff member that you could go back up for more as he carried a plate the size of Mount Cook over to our table. Amazing lamb, chicken, seafood, salads, potatoes (anything you could think of) they also briefly (kindly) swayed the Maori tradition for a mixture of delicious sweet puddings for dessert. Obviously there were no complaints about this. 

To end a perfect night the guys who had spent the whole day and indeed were spending the night there, got up and performed the song they had been taught and learnt earlier on in the day. This was a lovely way to depart.

We all rolled back to the bus and admired each others food pregnancies. We had our crazy lady bus driver again who decided to spice up the drive back by making each nation sing a classic song from their respective country. As pretty much all the Kiwi bus was English, we gave the loudest rendition of the Spice Girls, helped by a few younger members at the back of the bus. Our driver also decided to do a round of 'She'll be Coming round the mountain when she comes' and insisted on driving multiple times around a roundabout until we all joined in to her satisfaction. I think we went round about 12 times and were lucky to not cause a road accident!
We got back to Base, and played a few games of cards to finish off another fantastic day on the Kiwi experience. The next day we would move on wards and upwards (literally) to Lake Taupo...