Rotorua has the highest population of Maori people so tonight we treated ourselves on a trip to a traditional Maori village to experience some of their culture, Tamaki. Our guide, Mark for the night picked us up from the hostel and greeted us all with 'Kia Ora', which in Maori terms means several things, mainly, 'hello and goodbye'. Mark translated this into over 50 languages which was pretty impressive to say the least.

There were 4 coaches arriving at the Tamaki Village and each one had to nominate a Chief to perform the welcome ritual with tribe. David kept very quiet at this point and eventually a friendly Scot, named Scott was selected as Chief for the evening. On arrival the ritual took place which replicated the first arrival of Mouri tribes landing in Aretoura Land of the Long White Cloud, New Zealand. The main greeting being the nose to nose touching, followed by the intimidation dance.

The leaders of the tribe represented the gods of earth, fire, animal and wind and fortunately welcomed us into the village. Good job really!

After a quiick look around the village and chatting with some of the tribe we went to watch the show of them performing various traditional dances, including the famous war dance - the Haka.

At the end of the evening we were treated to the traditional Hangi feast. A huge buffet was laid out for us of all different foods, which had all been cooked in the ground by the use of hot rocks. More singing and dancing was done to end the night.