Once we left Waitomo our next stop was Rotorua. If you look up Rotorua online you will probably see comments that the province has a distinctive egg-like smell, due to the sulphur in the geothermal locations. We had also received jokey comments from other backpackers of how much it smelt, but for some reason we were still sceptical; surely it couldn’t be that potent? Once we arrived at our hostel we stepped out of our nice air conditioned car and was smacked with this smell of rotten egg. Unfortunately the stench was there for most of our time in Rotorua.
We had quite a lot that we wanted to do whilst here, the first of which was an authentic Maori experience for the first evening. I believe there is a couple of companies that offer this kind of experience, ours was by the company Tamaki. At around 6.30pm we were picked up from our hostel on a coach, to be taken to the village. We had a very enthusiastic and funny driver called JR, who briefed us on what our evening would bring and taught us a few key words. He explained that there will be many different groups on the experience, each would be considered a “tribe” to the local Maori people. JR then went onto say that it is tradition that there would be a welcoming ritual, for the Maori people to interpret whether we came in peace, or wanted to declare war on their tribe. However a key part of this ritual involves having a “chief” represent their tribe, so our coach needed to elect a chief. I think the time between JR asking for any volunteers and me being “volunteered” through Laura was probably about half of a second. For the ritual I had to stand forward with the other chiefs, whilst the tribesman tried to intimidate us by using large spears and various dances; whilst maintaining a straight face (as it is very disrespectful to smirk or laugh). I then had to accept a peace offering in the form of a fern leaf. After the ritual was over we were told that that was the most formal part of the evening, and to enjoy the rest of the night. We then went inside and spent time at various stations each providing something different. This included some games, and some lessons about how the Maori people believe they came into existence, and the meaning behind their face tattoos. Although I have to say… the most memorable station was were the men learnt the famous Haka dance (hilarious video available upon request). We were then taken inside to a stage where the people performed for us with some songs, then finishing off with a much more impressive interpretation of the Haka dance. The evening then ended with a feast, a traditional Hangi meal. This is the method the Maori people use for cooking, it is essentially a hole in the ground and some very hot rocks and the food is then smoked inside; and I have to say, the food tasted amazing. After experiencing the glow worm caves in Waitomo I didn’t think I would have another great experience like that in New Zealand, but to have one the night after was insane. I don’t want to compare the two because they are so different, but I think so far if I was to recommend one thing to do in New Zealand it would be the Maori experience. The evening was definitely a memorable one.
The next morning we woke up early to do some Zorbing. If you do not know what Zorbing is, it basically consists of a large ball filled with water, with you inside, pummelling down a hill. The second track we did we were both inside the ball, which was hilarious being rolled down with arms and legs flying everywhere. After some lunch at the hostel, we then went drove to the Redwoods to start one of the walks. We chose the 7.5km walk as it was late in the day. The woods were really pretty to walk around, with ginormous trees with a red tint on the bark, giving it the name Redwoods. Although, by accident we unknowingly chose the trail which kind of ventured away from the woods after a while, so that was disappointing.
The next day we had planned to leave Rotorua a little later in the day, so we walked into the town for a coffee. On our way to find one we stumbled across a cat cafe, so undoubtedly Laura wanted to see how much it was. It was a pretty reasonable price and a coffee was included so we spent some time with some fluffy cats. A couple of days earlier we had booked to do an escape room in Rotorua before we left, so after the cat cafe we went off to do that which great fun. If that wasn’t enough activities for Rotorua, we then started to regret that we hadn’t fit time in to see the geothermal features (the most famous one being the champagne pools). We checked the closing time of the Wai o Tapu experience and also the last time we could check into our next hostel, and came to the conclusion we just about had enough time to see it. It was pretty interesting to see and read about them, even though the egg-like smell was intensified by being there. Finally after seeing most of what Rotorua had to over, we left and headed for Tauranga.
Lee Teivans Travel Blog 